
Glass _ 
Book 



.Wis 



YOUTH 



YOUTH 



BY 



CHARLES WAGNER 



TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH 

BY 

ERNEST REDWOOD 



NEW YORK 

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 

J 903 






Copyright, 1893, 
By Dodd, Mead and Company. 



All rights reserved. 



{Bnforatlg Press: 

John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 



TO GRACE KING 

The American edition of this book 
is dedicated. 

CHARLES WAGNER. 



TO THE YOUTH OF AMERICA. 



My pen trembles in my hand with emotion as 1 
write these lines. They are going afar, to unknown 
friends ; and I would have them speak to their hearts. 
Across the distance which separates us, I would have 
them tell the profound sympathy I feel for them, and 
for that glorious country whose children they are. 

I have put in this hook the difficulties, the doubts, 
the vices, the contradictions, of the youth of France. 
I have put in also the noble griefs, the sufferings, the 
ardent thirst of an elect few who from out the beaten 
paths of realism and amid the disintegration of an 
artificial life aspire to a wholesome existence, to 
an inner harmony, to moral grandeur, to the pure 
sources of the divine. 

I have tried to encourage the awaking of the 
modern spirit, and from amidst the darkness 
where we stumble, to point with my finger to the 
morning star. 

In stigmatising these vices, in pointing out these 
hopes, in indicating the path which leads upward to 
the heights, have I done but a local work ? Has the 
youth of our old France nothing in common with that 
of young America? I cannot think it. We form 



Vi TO THE YOUTH OF AMERICA. 

one solidarity, united as much by the fatality of evil 
as by the traces of the higher life within us. Young 
nations, despite their vitality, their noble strength, 
their overflowing vigour, may none the less be touched 
by certain decrepitudes ; while above the moss-grown 
trunks of old-world nations there may grow green a 
branch of eternal hope. 

I have, then, every reason to believe that on both 
sides of the ocean we have the same enemies and the 
same allies. We all need to be reminded that man 
does not live by bread alone, — that the prosperity, 
the knowledge, the development of the material ener- 
gies which are the glory of this century, can end only 
in making of our civilisation a colossus with feet 
of clay, if we lose faith and fraternity. We all need 
to be reminded that intellectual overproduction, that 
overtaxing the receptive faculties and the sensibili- 
ties, both moral and physical, end in destroying 
mans equilibrium, in enervating his will, and plung- 
ing individuals and nations into decadence, despite 
all their culture. All of us, finally, have need to 
regain respect for love. 

Your customs are doubtless unlike ours. Your 
system of education gives you wonderful advantages. 
The young man is not from infancy kept apart from 
the young girl, creating thus for a lifetime two 
fractions of humankind, who understand one an- 
other so poorly, and thwart one another so often. 
Among you one cannot speak lightly of the worst 
sins, — against chastity, mans dignity, and woman's 
honour. And yet, for your youth as for ours, can 



TO THE YOUTH OF AMERICA. vii 

it not be said that love is at one and the same 
time its brightest and its darkest feature? I have 
no fear of contradiction. 

Let those who may commune with me in this book 
look into their own consciences. They will then 
understand why it is that from its first page I keep 
reiterating that with all youth the principal question 
is love. In it, young men, is your ruin or your 

\ at ion. 

Respect love in your own person and in that of 
woman. Respect the sources of life. All the lives 
to come are confided to the honour of the youth of the 
present generation. Meditate on the grandeur of 
such a responsibility, and draw your own inferences. 
They to whom the sacred fire is intrusted should keep 
repeating, Noblesse oblige. 

When I consider the youth of our day, it seems to 
me in every land like a vast sown field. Here, under 
the most varied forms, are growing the noxious plants 

: will poison the future ; here, too, are growing 
the good wheat and the healthful herbs destined to 
?wurish us, to comfort us, and to heal our wounds. 

In face of this alternative, I cannot refrain from 
addressing this personal question to every one whose 
eyes shall fall upon this book : — 

Will you be of those who do evil, or of those who 
combat it? Will you be of those who destroy, or 
of those who make whole? 

There is no middle course. The indifferent are 
all on the side of the murderers. To do nothing is 
one of the worst ways of doing evil. 



Vlil TO THE YOUTH OF AMERICA. 

He who has written these lines is not a man tied 
down to his desk. He is a man of action, almost a 
soldier. He has composed this hook like the trooper 
who writes his notes between two battles, on a gun- 
carriage or the pommel of his saddle. He is black 
with powder and covered with dust ; and the only 
thing he is absolutely sure of is that life is a strife, 
and that victory rests with God. When he sees 
certain young men, then, he feels like sounding a 
clarion to call them back. Ah ! how he wishes that 
some among those of you who read this book may 
say : I, too, wish to act the man and wear the 
sword. 

Our time is short. Let us not waste it in words. 
Farewell ! The daily struggle calls me. I leap into 
the saddle and cry again : God be with you, dear 
young companions in arms ! May he make you joy- 
ous, loving, brave! 

G WAGNER. 

PARIS, Christmas, 1892. 



ANALYSIS. 



Book tfitzt 

THE INHERITANCE, 

PAGE 

I. The Conquests of the Century. — Idea and plan of 

the book 13 

To understand the youth of to-day we must first study 
the century which produces it. Characteristic of the 
century: inductive science. Its aims, its labours, its 

beneficial results . . . , , . 15 

II. The Losses of the Century. —The reverse of the 
medal. Science specialized and materialized. Tri- 
umph of the positive sciences 21 

Negations and premature conclusions. Man belittled . . 22 

Consequences of this state of things in philosophy, the 
arts, literature, pedagogy, social and international re- 
lations 24 

III. The Contradictions of the Century. — Realism and 
the Modern Spirit defined. Their incompatibility. 
Their coexistence in the same minds. The crisis 
which results complicated still further by the reac- 
tionary movement , . . , . 32 

How to escape this crisis. By a return to normal think- 
ing and normal living, — that is to say, to the modern 
spirit. This must be the work of youth. Does it 
realize it? 3S 



X YOUTH, 

Book Secontu 

THE HEIRS. 

PAGE 

I. The World of Youth. — Youth in general. Its ten- 
dency to overestimate the work of its predecessors. 
Its contradictions. The everlasting- quarrel between 

youth and age 41 

Youth; its best and its worst points. Young life: its 
hopes and its sorrows. They who suffer from the 
faults of their elders and set themselves to repair them 43 

II. Intellectual Orientation. — Its real difficulty results 

from the absence of general ideas and the accumulation 
of knowledge in detail . ... 47 

Results of this state of things. Specialization carried to 
extremes. Narrowing of horizons. Uncertainty and 
doubt extending to science itself. We do not believe 
it as did our predecessors. Spiritual anarchy, scepti- 
cism, dilettanteism 51 

Religious orientation 56 

III. Moral Orientation. — Ruin of principles. Romancers 

and youth. Determinism, scepticism, dilettanteism in 

morality 59 

Weakening of respect and of the will ....... 62 

IV. The School of Life. — Books and study are one thing; 

life is another. Influence of life on the orientation of 

youth. Practical preoccupations 68 

Young diplomats . ... o . ........ 70 

Utilitarians 72 

Passive enjoyment and self-indulgence ....... 75 

The Useless Class 76 

An easy life. Play ' . . 80 

Love and love songs , . 82 

The good side of the influence of life. Our national life 

and our youth 86 

Military service . . 88 



ANALYSIS. xi 

PAGE 

V. The Sheep of Panurge. — Youth as a flock of sheep. 
Effects of our civilization on originality of thought 
and of life. Fashion : its ruts and worn roads. Diffi- 
culties in the way of a reaction 91 

VI. A Few Words on Party Spirit ........ 96 

VII. Health and Amusements. — Effects of an artificial life 

on health and the joy of living 101 

VIII. The Youth of the People. — Its especial position. 
The sources of its orientation : school, the church, 

the workshop, the fields 106 

Realism among the people. Example of their supe- 
riors. There are always directing classes .... 110 
Diminution of reverence. Is it the fault of the modern 

spirit? 113 

Those who are really to blame 115 

Confidence shaken. Scepticism among the people . .116 

Alcoholism 117 

The life of the people a precious treasure. It is men- 
aced. How to preserve it. By fraternizing with it . 119 

IX. Youth and Reaction. — Aim of reaction. To save 

society by suppressing three centuries of history. 
Motives for this undertaking. Its gigantic but de- 
ceptive character. Criticism of the attempt . . . 122 

X. Paths of To-morrow. — Signs of a new orientation. 

Realism and reaction equally powerless to give us 
life. The modern spirit trying to free itself from 
the trammels of exclusive tendencies in order to seek 
the good and the true wherever it is to be found. 
Forerunners in this movement. Traces of it in 
national instruction. A return to tradition in a new 
spirit 134 

Fermentation of these ideas in youth. An elite which 
withdraws from the current realism. Characteristics 
of this minority. Its broad and generous point of 
view. Its aspirations, intellectual, moral, religious, 
and social 142 

How to explain the origin of these tendencies . . . 147 



Xll YOUTH. 

PAGE 

Will they take hold of the people ? Necessity of a 
high democratic ideal and of ways to propagate it. 
The office of youth in this task 154 

The grand organ of national education, — the primary 
school 155 

Conclusion .'.... 159 

JSoofe £J}trtl. 
TOWARD THE SOURCES AND THE HEIGHTS. 

I. IS THE WORLD OLD? 163 

II. Life. How we must take it. — Life is a fact, a result, 
and a hope. It is our great affair. It does not rest 
on arguments, but on that will which underlies all 
things. Its worth. We must take it simply after the 
fashion of those beings who hold to it with all the 
energy of unconsciousness 168 

III. The Ideal. — Two ways of loving life. The baser and 

the higher love. The grand life, — the ideal. The 
ideal is not a fantasy. It is the living representation 

of the germs we bear within us . . 174 

Great scope of the new ideal 1 76 

IV. Action. — 1. Discipline. Breaking in or education. The 

end of discipline is self-mastery. Necessity of disci- 
pline. Passiveness and activity. Enthusiasm and 
energy. The school of war. The preparation of the 
soldier, and the cause for which he fights. Love of 
life: hatred of its enemies 182 

2. Work. Work is badly understood and even despised. 
It must be rehabilitated by honouring and practising 

it, by not concealing but rather by showing it . . . 191 
Manual labour. Its salutary and reparative influence. In 
the fields. Social influence of manual labour if carried 
on by the educated and well-to-do class 194 

3. Suffering. The role of effort and of suffering in life, 
individual and general. Its salutary influence. Suf- 
fering as a liberator 200 



ANALYSIS. Xlll 

PAGE 

4. Meditation and Rest. Difficulty of meditation in our 
feverish world. Fear of a tete-a-tete with oneself. 
Meditation salutary. Its role in all productive activ- 
ity. Stop, traveller ! Examination of the conscience. 204 

Rest a necessity and duty 212 

V. Enjoyment. 1. Pleasures and Amusements. The detrac- 

tors of pleasure. Distractions legitimate and neces- 
sary. Leisure in human life. The importance of it. 
We do not know how to amuse ourselves .... 216 

A word on amusements at different epochs of history. 
As we near our times, they take on a more sedentary 
character. Our pleasures artificial and stimulating" . 217 

A reform in progress. The renaissance of open-air 
sports, games of strength and skill. Walking. In- 
vestigating our own country 222 

Singing, and its decadence among youth and the people. 
The need to sing. A dream 224 

Discredit into which amusements are fallen through 
abuse. War against this abuse. Rehabilitation of 
amusements. The role of all serious persons in this 
work. Let us live for youth 225 

2. Joyousness. Its sources. Heights and depths of the 
inner life. Sadness. Its forms and causes. Persons 
tired of life. Depression which comes from think- 
ing and living badly. . . 228 

We must love life. Joy of living, and means of 
acquiring this 232 

VI. Solidarity. — l. The Family. It is the great school of 

solidarity and the basis of society par excellence. Its 
incalculable importance. Youth and the family. 
Honour thy father and thy mother. Respect the 
first condition of liberty 235 

2. Friendship. Friendships of youth,— their beauty, 
their lasting quality, their educational value. Friend- 
ships between persons of ripe age and youth ... 239 

3. Love. Our heedlessness with regard to it. Youth 
reaches its most critical age without compass or 



xiv YOUTH. 

PAGE 

direction. How youth should govern itself as regards 
love. Respect for life and for itself is the best safe- 
guard and the best counsellor. We must have 
counterweights against lax maxims. Chastity. The 
difficult and interesting position of young men who 
observe it. Troubled hours. Moral failures. Never 
cease to call evil evil 244 

Woman's sacred place in the heart of a young man. 
The cult of woman 256 

Young men and young girls. Their separation deplored. 
Results of this separation. A youth without love is 
like a morning without sun. Love and enthusiasm . 256 

Solidarity of flesh and blood 259 

4. Love of Country, and the Social Role of Youth. Defini- 
tion of Country. Initiation into its genius. The best 
way to love one's country. The national ideal of 
France corresponds with the ideal of progress. 
Vanity of cosmopolites. No humanity without 
country. How we can serve humanity while attend- 
ing to our own affairs 260 

The work of national concentration must be attempted 
by youth. Social disintegration, divisions, parties. 
Remedy for this evil. Young men must cultivate 
those of different opinions from their own. Frater- 
nizing. Breaking down social barriers ..... 265 

We must live the life of the lowly to learn justice and 
suffering 270 

5 A Word on the International Role of Youth . . . 272 
VII. Belief. — Why we speak of it last and not first. Belief 
dogmatic and free. Submission and conviction. 
The Gospel and Belief. To believe, we must begin 
by being m . Belief is born of life and experience. 
The religious sense. Respect and piety the indis- 
pensable condi ions of belief 277 

The reconstruction of belief through piety toward the 
past and toward the present. Historic theology and 
the place of honour which belongs to it. The gospel 
in sympathy with the conscience uf to-day .... 282 



ANALYSIS. XV 

PAGE 

The forgotten gospel. The gospel of Jesus and the 
modern spirit. The gospel nearer us than we think. 
Why ? God human, and humanity divine. The sim- 
plicity and boldness of the gospel. The gospel and 
the weak. Trust and self-sacrifice 282 

The gospel and youth. The gospel and all those who 
try to practise an upright life 286 

Independence of belief. We must love the poverty of 
it and distrust every human yoke 288 

The bond )f religious brotherhood and attachment to 
special traditions. Their necessity. Watch against 
the exclusive spirit. The smaller churches are good 
only as they prepare for the Church universal. The 
higher regions of belief. Our Father who art in 
heaven 288 

Conclusion 290 



Book First. 



INHERITANCE. 



What shall it profit a man if he gain 
the whole world and lose his own soul ? 

Jesus. 

There are more things in heaven and 
earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your 
philosophy. — Shakespeare. 



YOUTH. 



25ooft fit$t. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE CONQUESTS OF THE CENTURY. 

Y\/E often see, toward the end of winter, the gardener 
* * full of anxious care walking among his espaliers 
and trellises. He notes the condition of the buds and 
the wood, and with a careful eye examines the mys- 
terious coverings which the sap of spring will soon 
swell and burst. These walks, where anxiety is always 
mingled with hope, suggest to me by analogy another 
walk, more disquieting still and more interesting, — 
that which the thinker preoccupied with the future may 
take among youth. There, also, sleeps, veiled and yet 
apparent beneath the veil that covers it, the great ques- 
tion of to-morrow. It germinates and grows in the 
heart of youth ; it sets in ferment in their brain things 
more significant than those which the gardener tries to 
discover under the covering of his buds. 

Always interesting and always worthy of the most 
sympathetic attention, youth should especially attract 



14 YOUTH. 

us at critical epochs when changes announce themselves 
in the mental attitude. Does it not seem that this 
should be the case at the end of the present century ? 
Doubtless it is a vulgar error to confound periods of 
human evolution with the arbitrary chronological divi- 
sions called centuries. To the centuries are attributed 
a youth and an old age ; one speaks of their dawn and 
decline. Nothing is further from the truth. Powerful 
movements have marked the end of some centuries ; 
others have begun in decay and senility. It is none the 
less true that there may be a coincidence between the 
end of an historic period and the end of a century. 
Such I believe to be the case at present. We have be- 
hind us a vast development, wherein can be noted, after 
the enthusiasms of youth and the virile efforts of a 
brilliant manhood, the hesitations and signs of lassi- 
tude common to old age. But as humanity renews 
itself unceasingly, and is reborn from its ashes, it 
is at the moment when old things have reached the 
maximum of decrepitude that new things come to 
life. 

That a time like this we are passing through should 
be big with the problems of the future, no one can 
doubt. That these problems present themselves with 
more insistence to those entering on life than to those 
already engaged in its affairs or about to leave it, is 
evident. Nothing is more natural, therefore, than to 
turn our thoughts to youth, both in its interest and 
our own. 

What will it do ? How will it take its place in the 
world which its predecessors have bequeathed it ? What 



THE CONQUESTS OF THE CENTURY. 15 

are its perils, its hopes, its pressing duties ? Truly, here 
is what may excite the most legitimate curiosity. 

That we may see clearly into these various questions, 
it is necessary first to take a sort of inventory, and to 
characterize briefly the inheritance which falls to our 
youth ; then to try to understand this youth itself, and 
some of the modes of thought that distinguish it. We 
will try, after that, to trace such an ideal scheme of life 
as shall inspire the flower of our youth for the grand 
mission imposed upon them, — to avail themselves of 
the good the departing century leaves them, while 
striving to fill up its gaps and rectify its errors. 

It is always very difficult to unify and group under a 
single point of view the greatly divergent elements of 
human activity. But, in general, the salient point of a 
century is not hard to discover, for it is that character- 
istic which determines its physiognomy, its tendencies, 
its beauties, and its defects. If it were designated by a 
title, indelibly and peculiarly its own, the period which 
we are leaving could not be called otherwise than the 
age of inductive science. Knowledge has come little by 
little, and for the first time since the creation of man, 
to be the directing power. Though this may appear 
evident, it is not superfluous to affirm it, because of the 
superficial idea which is often held of the grand work 
of man and of that which it is the fashion to call pro- 
gress. Humanity is commonly represented as marching 
along a route where each generation marks its stage. 
There is thus, except for the difference of pace, constant 
advance along the whole line. This conception is false 
and dangerous. Not only are there, in the advance of 



16 YOUTH. 

society, long halts and retrograde movements, but essen- 
tial changes of direction. The ideal of certain epochs 
is perchance at others neglected and even trampled 
under foot ; and often these two epochs work together, 
each after its own fashion, for the accomplishment of 
historical ends. There are periods of creation and 
periods of destruction ; there are periods which are 
devoted to analysis and working in detail, others which 
are synthetical. These seem asleep; those are as im- 
petuous as a torrent. Certain centuries are religious, 
poetic, artistic ; others commercial, industrial, warlike. 
They are also effeminate and dissolute, as they are 
energetic and virtuous. And all bring on the scene 
their especial characters; chosen sons, made in their 
image, and pass on in their turn honour and power to 
dreamers, diplomats, orators, the rash, the wise, fools, 
favourites, courtiers. But human evolution is so vast 
and so complicated that it never takes in everything at 
a time. It advances by successive moves in directions 
the most varied. Notwithstanding the wealth of its 
aspirations or its struggles to embrace all, each period 
of activity makes only its particular advance, to which 
everything is subordinated, one might even say sacri- 
ficed. It thus proves a kind of polarization of the 
entire work of humanity about a chosen centre. In 
the particular sphere which it delights to cultivate, a 
century surpasses, as a rule, those preceding it. But 
this does not imply that it surpasses or even equals 
them in other respects. On the contrary, the advan- 
tage which it gains by concentrating all its energies in 
one direction is offset by a loss in other departments. 



THE CONQUESTS OF THE CENTURY. 17 

Centuries, like individuals, have the defect of their 
qualities. There is here a general law which we 
must remember. Thanks to it, we understand better 
how, for example, the ancients, who were our masters 
in so many things, were only children in science com- 
pared to us. And the same law will explain to us, in- 
versely, certain lamentable gaps in existing civilization. 
We, then, have made our advance in the direction of 
inductive science, not through mere fantasy, but driven 
by necessity. Under the slow wear of time old bases 
of society and antique creeds have decayed and fallen 
apart. It was imperative to strengthen them by grasp- 
ing firmly the facts and ideas which entered into the 
building of this venerable edifice. That could only be 
done by going back over the humble path of experi- 
ence. With a patience proof against all toil, man sub- 
mitted and set himself to review the world in minute 
detail. Small and feeble in the face of a giant creation, 
ephemeral in the face of time without limit, he has 
not been rebuffed by the mediocrity of his methods 
nor the extent of the task. Simply, courageously, 
using his eyes to see, his fingers to touch, his heart to 
decide, he has set himself to the work. For he has 
found that the method which consists of deducing 
one fact from another, advancing from that which is near 
and known to that which is distant and unknown, is 
the most marvellous of discoveries. He could review 
through it, with tiny steps but sure, the most prodigious 
distances. Workers succeeded one another in their 
task, often obscure, where even to begin was to under- 
go a thousand privations. But when one dropped, 



18 YOUTH. 

another fell into step. How many labours have been 
forgotten, how many discoveries ignored ! Never has 
humanity appeared more admirable than on this steep 
road, where we see it advance wearied, wounded, but 
not rebuffed, holding in its hand the thread of gold 
which can guide it through the shadows to the dawn 
of truth. 

Thanks to these enormous labours, we possess ad- 
vantages which cannot be enumerated without emotion 
and thankfulness. 

Astronomers have laid bare the immensity of the 
universe, and brought within our reach facts whose 
grandeur surpasses even the imagination. Geographers 
and explorers have made us know the globe we in- 
habit. Geologists have told us that it was born in fire, 
in ages far distant. The natural sciences have begun 
to instruct us in the numberless forms which life as- 
sumes in the vegetable and animal world, and have re- 
vealed to us an infinity more wonderful than that 
which astronomers have shown, — the infinity of small 
things. Physicians and physiologists have penetrated 
far in the delicate and difficult investigation of the hu- 
man body, in order to teach us to know ourselves and 
to fight more effectively against suffering and disease. 
The mechanical arts and chemistry have accelerated 
intercourse, reduced distances, swelled a hundredfold 
industrial production, and increased the general welfare. 
Electricity, too, that last ally, which keeps its secret 
and serves us without our knowing why, has made 
an advance which seems to belong to the realm of the 
impossible. 



THE CONQUESTS OF THE CENTURY. 19 

Meanwhile historians have brought back the past, 
with a tireless activity, piece by piece, often forgetting 
to live in the present in order to bury themselves in the 
archives, the catacombs, the exhumed ruins of other 
days. They have set in their true light, and replaced 
in their historic frames the legends and the religious 
traditions of the fathers. They have corrected secular 
errors, avenged the martyrs, rehabilitated noble memo- 
ries, scourged crimes, and above all set in their high 
and deserved place the weak and small, whose suffer- 
ings and rude labours have been too long neglected in 
favour of the wars and intrigues of the mighty of the 
earth ; — great services, too long to enumerate, but 
which every one can recall. 

If we could bring back to us a man of the genera- 
tions that have disappeared and take him among the 
marvels which our age owes to science, he would go 
from astonishment to astonishment, and would surely 
say to us: It was thus that we dreamed the age of 
gold. There is no question that the man of the present 
must find himself happier than he of old, and become 
better and more the master of himself. Knowing bet- 
ter the laws of Nature, he can conform his life to them. 
The diseases of yore are unknown to him, as well as 
its poverty and misery. He rules serenely over docile 
forces. That which would of old have destroyed him, 
to-day is his bondman. Fire is harnessed to his chariot, 
the lightning is his messenger. How this royalty should 
ennoble him! At the same time the history of the 
human race has given him great lessons in wisdom, in 
tolerance, in clemency. Among nations there should be 



20 YOUTH. 

good will. Justice should govern individuals and socie- 
ties. Brought up from their youth in the belief of their 
high station, men should cause peace and fraternity to 
flourish on the earth which their ancestors soaked with 
blood. Happy the youth inheritors of such a world ! 

And this ancient would reason rightly. Why should 
facts contradict conclusions so natural? Here we are 
led to consider the reverse of the medal, or what the 
language of the law would call the inheritance tax. 



THE LOSSES OF THE CENTURY. 21 



CHAPTER II. 

THE LOSSES OF THE CENTURY. 

ET us recall the law of which we have spoken. 
*~* Humanity does not go forward equally in all 
directions, but by leaps. In throwing herself so ar- 
dently in the direction of science, she has necessarily 
lost sight of other domains. Great territories, which 
are integral parts of man's patrimony, have been un- 
consciously neglected. Further, science itself has felt 
the reflex action of the law which raised it to the first 
rank. Too vast to be studied in all its ramifications, it 
has developed in certain branches in preference to 
others, and even to their exclusion. We see in the 
same way, often, one or more branches of a tree absorb 
nearly all the sap of the trunk, and leave to the others 
only a diminished sustenance. It was inevitable that 
in the gigantic undertaking of mastering the world in 
its smallest detail and sifting its facts and ideas, the 
elemental bases of all things must first be studied. The 
mechanical sciences and mathematics, the entire group 
of natural sciences, would naturally develop first. But 
as whenever we try to fathom the universe we come 
face to face with the infinite, so the sciences, at the outset 
so great in extent, soon seemed the whole of the world. 
After a time neither the strength nor the lifetime of 



22 YOUTH. 

investigators sufficed to consider them all. Each man, 
then, in this limitless field where the roads branch off 
unceasingly, entered on a single pathway. Investigators 
scattered, and more and more lost sight of one another. 
At the same time they all, as a consequence of living 
among elementary principles, ended by declaring as 
facts only tangible facts, and by giving the name of 
science to that which they call, by a title as false as 
significant, the positive sciences. 

During all this, humanity continued to live and to 
need sustenance. She had followed these hardy pio- 
neers of the remade world in their advance, and was, 
without suspecting it, far from her base of supplies. 
She had abandoned her old house before her new one 
was prepared. It was then that the consciousness of the 
brevity of life, the longing for something assured, and 
the need of interpreting life, gave birth prematurely to 
a philosophy which, seizing the actual results of scien- 
tific work, flattered itself that it could reconstruct with 
their aid the world and humanity, while deliberately 
ignoring all the accumulated wisdom and faith of the 
past. Alas ! the materials for this reconstruction, mar- 
vellous when we consider the labours of those who 
collected them, were none the less nearly useless in 
building a world. Could one explain the whole of 
life with what hardly sufficed to explain a grain 
of sand or a blade of grass ? Rashest of all attempts ! 
But the bold are always right, at least for a time. That 
time is passing to-day. We see that we have been too 
much in haste. After having begun to practise the 
inductive method, we have abandoned it ; we have also 



THE LOSSES OF THE CENTURY. 23 

abandoned tradition, in which there is so much really 
worthy of preservation ; and we have made a pro- 
digious leap into hypothesis, establishing conclusions 
which should have been reserved for the far-off future. 
In a word, we have thrown away our old bread to 
make new while the wheat is yet in the blade. 

In thus reducing the real to its known proportions 
we have impoverished ourselves, and, what is truly 
remarkable, after having seen so many things of which 
our fathers were ignorant, we have narrowed our hori- 
zon. Man is belittled in his own eyes. This is the 
great, the negative result of the scientific development 
we have sketched. 

But let us avoid being misunderstood. We are not 
of those who accuse certain men for the turn things 
have taken. No one can direct the life of society in 
its entirety. Each of us works in his own sphere ; the 
sum total does not depend on his will. We can only 
be expected to do what seems to us right. If the result 
does not answer expectation, it is not our affair. We 
accuse no one, then. Nevertheless, it is always use- 
ful to verify a fact and try to understand the situation, 
that we may draw lessons for the future. Still less 
do we accuse science. That would be folly and ingrati- 
tude. We desire only that science shall from day to 
day consider all facts worthy of respect, that it shall 
regain its equipoise and restore to spiritual realities the 
attention they deserve. We remember, too, that in 
the movement of science toward materialism, those 
who have gone the fastest have not been scholars. 
Many of them have carefully refrained from acced- 



24 YOUTH. 

ing to what may be called the scientific superstition. 
But if they have been reserved, others have spoken 
in their name. There are philosophers and writers 
who speculate with scientific data assumed en bloc, as 
one speculates with stocks on the bourse. 

The belittling of man in his own eyes necessarily 
appears in all provinces of existence, betraying itself by 
a weakening of the spiritual life. By a sort of fatality, 
doctrines based on scientific materialism have invaded the 
arts and literature, and have spread from there into 
daily life, creating a lower materialism in which we 
seem engulfed at this end of the century. Egoism, in 
painful contradistinction, has profited most largely from 
the scientific conquests which sacrifice and devotion 
have won. In its hands they have swerved from their 
original purpose, and many have done more harm than 
good. 

In pedagogy there are these other results, — utilita- 
rian instruction, which is the breaking to harness of the 
bread-winner; and intellectualism, which places the 
centre of gravity of life in the domain of knowledge, 
as if that were all of man. Instruction has been con- 
sidered a sufficient means of morality, and made unduly 
prominent at the expense of the development of char- 
acter as well as discipline and physical health. 

If the world of thought and feeling is cramped by 
abnormal scientific realism, it would seem, on the 
other hand, that the material world should have gained 
largely. There are, in fact, few scientific discoveries 
which have not been utilized for industrial purposes. 
And it is true that material good has greatly increased. 



THE LOSSES OF THE CENTURY. 25 

We are, as a general thing, better nourished, better 
lighted, better warmed, better and more quickly taught 
and transported, better cared for when we fall ill, better 
armed. Unhappily, there is a reverse to the medal. 
One of the darkest clouds of the times actually results 
from this very industrial progress. The methods of 
production, capital, and machinery have become so 
vast that they are beyond calculation and direction. 
Social results, completely unforeseen, often appear. In- 
dustrialism rises before us with all its consequences, — ■ 
industrialism, which crushes man beneath the machine, 
labour beneath capital, and which has become a source 
of suffering and hate as much through the physical 
and moral wretchedness of the labouring classes as 
through the uncertainty and excitement into which it 
has thrown commerce and manufactures. 

Extreme centralization, which is another consequence 
of industrial and scientific development, has given us 
our monster cities, centres of artificial life, where is de- 
veloped on the one hand pauperism, and on the other 
undue luxury, — dangerous neighbours, whose proximity 
is rendered more baleful by the pursuit of facile pleasures, 
and the creation of a crowd of artificial needs. All 
these causes taken together have undermined the public 
health. 

In the field of international relations the struggle for 
existence, dowered by science with wonderfully perfect 
methods, has engendered militarism, an evil worse than 
war itself. One might define militarism as the scienti- 
fic solution of the following problem : Given a union 
of all the forces of humanity, and all knowledge, as 



26 YOUTH. 

well as the fullest national resources, to find a method 
to neutralize them, and even to extract from them all 
the evil possible. 

Our means of locomotion seem at the moment to 
serve less to draw nations together than to accentuate 
rivalries. The very accumulation of riches and indus- 
trial power has divided man from man, and increased 
the sharpness of competition and social distances ; the 
very perfection of the implements of war has made na- 
tions more distrustful. Their intercourse is rather that 
of inspection, suspicion, and injury, than a desire to 
know one another better, and to come together on the 
common ground of human interest. 

The impression which we wish to create seems 
sufficiently prefaced by these considerations. Does 
it not seem, looking at our civilisation in a certain 
light, that a wicked genius has turned to evil 
all the new forces with which science has enriched 
mankind ? 

How has this come about ? Can the scientific method 
be a bad one ? Have we gone astray in desiring to 
base life on experience instead of continuing to live in 
the old world of authority and dogma ? Not in the 
least. Our error has been in believing that knowledge 
and bread are sufficient for humanity, and allowing 
ourselves to slip from the scientific realism which in- 
cludes man in the so-called positive knowledge, to a 
material realism which believes that to be fed, clothed, 
and housed is the sum of existence. 

The best things can become injurious when they out- 
step their limits. Let us go somewhat into detail to 



THE LOSSES OF THE CENTURY. 27 

explain ourselves better, for this is the key to the 
situation. 

Every one knows that there have been at certain his- 
torical epochs exclusive powers, which have arrogated 
the right to direct and fashion humanity according to 
their own needs and often their own caprices. At one 
time it was religion, which, outstepping the bounds of 
its legitimate influence, made the arts, sciences, govern- 
ment, spring from itself. Now it is financial or mer- 
cantile power which seizes on society and reduces all 
human interests to a question of money. Again it is the 
military power which dictates, to the extent of driving 
into the background whatever weighs nothing in the 
balance against physical force. All these powers, legiti- 
mate in themselves because they represent a portion of 
human interest, are public evils when they become ex- 
clusive. Intended to serve the general good, they are 
its worst enemies. Each of them becomes a formida- 
ble organization, under which a monstrous collective 
egoism hides and defends itself, — an egoism in compari- 
son with which that of the individual is as nothing. 
Such is the egoism of great institutions, of corporations, 
of castes and classes, of all clericalisms, and all the in- 
dividual isms. We recognize in them actual combina- 
tions of individual interests which degenerate into at- 
tempts against society and end in paralyzing life about 
them. You remember the scribe at the time of Christ, 
the priest in the confessional at another epoch, and even 
according to their places and times the sophist of 
Athens, doctors, astrologers, men of the law, of war, 
and usurers. At certain periods of history it seems 



28 YOUTH. 

as if the earth had been created for the especial behoof 
of one or other of these personages, and the institutions 
they represent. They became the tyrants of mankind, 
its very shadow. Without them one could neither ad- 
vance nor stop, live nor die. Everything belonged to 
them. Humanity was their possession, their sacrificial 
victim. Yet the starting-point of these tyrannical atro- 
cities can always be traced to some original service to 
humanity. Why the decadence that has made them 
later on the very worst caricatures of what they were at 
first ? It is for this reason : They have sinned against 
the grand law which defines absolutely the limit of every 
human institution, — to serve, not enthrall, humanity. 

I fear that this law has been seriously infringed as 
respects science. In fact, what do we now see ? The 
continuation of that admirable work which ought one 
day to represent the honest investigation by man of his 
impedimenta of facts and ideas ? That investigation 
doubtless continues, and no power can stop it. No; 
what we do see is the pretence of certain sciences to 
represent in themselves all human knowledge. And as 
outside of knowledge there is no longer in the eyes of 
science thus curtailed any means for man to come in 
contact with the realities, we see the pretence advanced 
by some that all reality and all life should be reduced 
to that which they have verified. Outside of this (and 
vast as it is, God knows how wretched is the domain 
compared with the infinite riches of life), there are only 
dreams and illusions. This is indeed too much ! It is 
no longer science, but scientific absolutism. 

There would be no occasion to disturb ourselves if 



THE LOSSES OF THE CENTURY. 29 

this pretence had not found a tremendous echo in the 
world. Let us quote the words of men of authority, 
that we may not be accused of exaggeration. 

In a treatise which has had the widest circulation, 
Culturgescbicbte und Naturwissenschaft ', the Berlin 
professor Du Bois-Reymond said in 1877, and his words 
express the sentiment of a host of serious people who 
are imbued with the same prejudice : " The history of 
the natural sciences is the veritable history of mankind. 
What has been thus called until now is only a history 
of wars on the one hand, and the foolish conceptions of 
some civilized people on the other." From a man who 
more than any other has established and avowed the lim- 
itations of human knowledge, and who besides con- 
siders that commerce with classical antiquity is the only 
way to save us from a flat utilitarianism, such a state- 
ment is most significant. It is, moreover, a symptom. 
Already they no longer say : Science and philosophy 
ought to suffice for humanity. Philosophy has gone 
into the rubbish heap with religion and poetry. They 
say science ought to suffice for humanity. And leaping, 
in one gigantic bound beyond the position, already far 
enough advanced, of the German savant, one of our 
contemporary French scholars has left us six words, 
which will be to future generations evidence of the 
state of mind of a whole series of generations : " There 
is no longer any mystery " (Berthelot). Nothing equals 
the success which these ideas have had in every rank 
of society. They have spread through thousands of 
channels, among all classes. For many, for the im- 
mense majority, the outcome of science, duly proved 



30 YOUTH. 

and verified, is the belief that what we call the higher 
realities do not exist. Man is an animal like the other 
animals. It is easy to draw this practical conclusion. 

At giant step the age has advanced in the path of 
realism, — scientific at first, practical next, — strewing 
its way heedlessly with all that constitutes the highest 
good of humanity. It has replaced the conception of a 
living world with that of a dead world. Everywhere 
the mechanical has superseded the spiritual. Material- 
istic science imputes spirituality neither to the world nor 
to mankind. For it there is no hereafter. The uni- 
verse is a mighty piece of fireworks which is destined 
finally to be reduced to elementary atoms. These are 
the days when certain scholars speak as if they knew 
everything. As to the ignorant, they are more positive 
still ; and the greater number of our contemporaries are 
bitten by the stunted conception of a universe which 
furnishes no grounds for their beliefs, their conduct, nor 
even their feelings. What do things such as these 
amount to in the eyes of scientific realism ? Nothing. 
In such a world the lot of man is to descend to the 
grade of a machine, and to be, according to circum- 
stances, a machine for work, for study, for enjoy- 
ment, for slaughter, a slave of lust, or food for the 
mitrailleuse. 

And this is why, after having worked harder and in- 
vestigated more thoroughly than any age, we are in 
danger of foundering in complete nothingness. 

The hidden weakness, the flaw in the armour of this 
grand epoch, has been to forget that there are more 
things in heaven and earth than the positive sciences, or 



THE LOSSES OF THE CENTURY. 31 

even all human knowledge, can prove. Our works 
have grown greater ; we have grown smaller. Man is 
lessened in his own eyes, in his dignity, and in his as- 
pirations. The crime of high treason against humanity 
is at the bottom of all the sufferings of our times. 
Civilization rests on man. Remove man and all 
the immense machinery is thrown out of gear. It is 
because its basis, man, is weak that our civilization 
threatens to crumble about our heads. 

And this is not the most striking feature in the pic- 
ture of the inheritance which our children will receive. 
That which is more striking still, but which will be its 
salvation if our successors understand it, is that the 
world in which we live is thoroughly contradictory. 
We will try to show how. 



32 YOUTH. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE CONTRADICTIONS OF THE CENTURY. 

TTHE materialistic conception of the world, and such 
* portions of our civilization as are the temporary 
result of it, seem to us antagonistic to the modern 
spirit at every point. The modern spirit represents the 
epitomized inheritance of the ages. The title " modern " 
indicates only its tendency and methods, not its con- 
stituent parts, for they are drawn from every source. 
It can be well defined in the beautiful words of Terence : 
Homo sum ; humani nihil a me alienum puto. The 
modern spirit is the sum total, condensed, of the best 
which humanity has drawn from all the mighty labours 
and all the sufferings of the past. It is, in the domain 
of thought, a broad outlook over all things, a premedi- 
tation to exclude nothing, to see clearly and to find the 
truth as it is, without any reservation; in a word, 
the true scientific spirit. 

In the domain of the affections, it is a kindly dispo- 
sition, resolute to despise no one, to defraud no one, 
to respect in especial the weak, and to have pity on all 
who suffer. It is, above all, the glorification of labour 
as the mighty power which makes men free and good. 

In politics, the modern spirit is the democratic spirit 
in its highest sense. It recognizes, as the regulators of 
society, right, law, justice, and joint responsibility. 



THE CONTRADICTIONS OF THE CENTURY. 33 

If there were, on the one hand, all the power, the 
united armies, the great and formidable coalition of 
nations which weigh heaviest in the scale, and on the 
other Justice disarmed, the modern spirit would de- 
mand that all arms should be laid down, and that all 
interests be silent before Justice. 

If there were, on the one hand, the masses with their 
clamour and transports of rage, and on the other a 
single wise man with the truth on his side, the modern 
spirit would be with the one against the many. Such 
is the modern spirit ! 

Realism, both scientific and practical, is the negation 
of all this. 

In the domain of thought, realism is the most nar- 
row provincialism one can imagine, — the true parish 
feeling, which considers nothing outside of its limits. 
The mighty orchestra of worlds and of lives comes to 
it only as a faint sound, a monotonous vibration of a 
single cord. 

In the domain of the affections, realism is absolute 
egoism ; it is a decision to consider no one, and to treat 
as imbecility any concession to a fellow-man which is 
not the result of calculation. There is only one right, 
that of the strongest ; one law, that of combat. The 
weak must disappear. Solidarity is nothing but a 
phrase, conscience a chimera. There is not room 
for all the world. That some may live, others must 
die. Beati possidentes. Enjoyment is the end of life. 
Work is considered a drudgery that procures pleasure. 
It would be much better if we could take our pleasure 
without it. 

3 



34 YOUTH. 

In politics, realism is the deification of brute force 
In the higher grades of society it is tyranny ; in the 
lower, unbridled license ; everywhere it is a savage con- 
flict of interests and passions. It is doomed to oscillate 
between the despotism of the masses and that of the 
individual, each devouring the other in turn. Also, 
always and everywhere, it has destroyed liberty. A 
democratic realist would be a contradiction in terms. 

Realism and the modern spirit are in conflict in the 
heart of existing society. It is that which makes the 
situation so tragic, and life seem to us so rich in con- 
trasts, so deeply and so worthily stirred. If we could 
deify the brute, and organize in all its horrible beauty 
a civilized barbarism, we should not experience the 
pangs which torture us. But under the exterior which 
realism, for the moment triumphant, has imposed on 
us, lives and suffers a better self. Against every hide- 
ous creation with which brutality obstructs progress, 
the modern spirit raises its voice in protest. And this 
spirit is not the last sigh of an expiring world ; it is a 
force ever strengthening, though impalpable, which, 
without belonging to the individual, knows how to de- 
clare itself in a thousand ways in the very presence of 
shame and weakness. When the brute force that acts in 
animals through claws and talons develops in the breast 
of man into the fortress, cannon, dynamite, or even 
the impudent tyranny of the majority and of wealth, 
then the greater grows this unseen intangible power. It 
is useless to declare that force dominates right, to call 
all the lower forms of Nature to witness and to furnish 
proof of those deeds of violence which make some de- 



THE CONTRADICTIONS OF THE CENTURY. 35 

clare that there is no judge on earth ; right is none 
the less a power against which naught avails. In its 
own good time it breaks forth, sways all minds, warms 
every heart, lightens and strikes like the thunderbolt, 
and the works of brute force are destroyed. Though 
you try in vain to understand how in this unequal tight 
he who is the better armed goes down, you can see, in 
noting the results, that a great and mysterious power 
has been there. 

I make allusion to socialism simply to lay my finger 
on one of the places where the modern spirit is in 
sharp conflict with realism. What is socialism, in the 
large and noble acceptation of the word ? It is the 
assertion of the value of life and the principle of 
solidarity, the inviolability of the individual, and his 
indissoluble connection with society. All for each ; 
each for all ! To be a socialist it is necessary to have 
consideration for others, — above all, for the weak, for 
children, for women, for all that are desolate, outraged, 
and oppressed. What is done to them is done to our- 
selves, to humanity, nay, to God. You must, to be 
a socialist, understand the relations necessary to unite 
closely the members of society in all stages of develop- 
ment, and you must cherish a kindly feeling for all 
forms of human life, in order to appreciate the relations 
of individuals and the most diverse conditions. What 
is all this from the realist's point of view ? 

The realist says: Each one for himself. When he 
has eaten and drunken, the world is bright, and all goes 
well. When he is hungry, all goes ill, everything must 
be destroyed. These two ways of regarding life meet 



36 YOUTH. 

face to face in our society. Nay more, they coexist 
often in the same persons. Among our contemporaries 
there are many who have assimilated the materialistic 
conception of life, and even in their morale are realists. 
But you hear them proclaim the right, invoke justice, 
and exalt responsibility. It is as if they made a va- 
cuum under a glass for a bird's house. They do not 
take into consideration the incompatibility between their 
conception of the world and the men and things they 
wish to place in it. 

We could find material for the same class of remarks 
in very different spheres. A countless host of men live 
to-day by expedients and contradictions. They remind 
us of those creations of artistic imagination, dragons, 
sphinxes, and fabulous monsters, where the eagle, the lion, 
the serpent, and man are united in one fantastic animal. 
Do not imagine that these strange amalgamations are 
met only among uncultured people. They are every- 
where. It cannot be helped, — man is the product of 
his times. The evidences of the antagonism which runs 
through the very heart of our existing civilization show 
themselves in every man. In the discourses of pro- 
fessors, of statesmen, and even of instructors of religion, 
one meets them. Many a statesman making an address 
begins by lauding the positive sciences or by laying 
down utilitarian axioms ; but, drawn by his subject into 
the field of education, of morality, of public order, he 
ends in absolute idealism. 

Matters are, besides, complicated by another factor 
of considerable importance, — namely, the reactionary 
movement The reactionists lay to the account of the 



THE CONTRADICTIONS OF THE CENTURY. 37 

modern spirit all the evils of existing society, and the 
difficulties with which it contends. They propose to 
set all right by a return to the status quo of the fifteenth 
century. It is a great undertaking, as can be seen, and 
we will refer to it again ; for this movement has many 
ramifications, and affects many minds in different de- 
grees. Reactionary minds for one class, those imbued 
with the modern spirit for another, and a few materialists 
to boot, — a good many of us are of this way of thinking. 
In truth, the modern spirit in many people brings to 
mind house-moving. Part of the furniture is already 
in the new house ; part is in the street, tossed about pell- 
mell, exposed to the weather and to accidents ; part is 
still quietly installed in the old home. All this makes 
a crisis and a state of transformation most complicated. 
In a time of simple habits the suffering which such a 
crisis produces is lessened by outside circumstances ; 
but in our day our. culture increases the complication, 
which is, in short, found in every department, spiritual 
and material alike. The men of our day have been 
taken unaware by a too abrupt change of the conditions 
of existence. Events have overstepped them and led 
them astray. The accumulated results of the causes we 
have set to work without knowing their power, trouble 
and frighten us. The more complex an organism is, 
the more it suffers. A man dies of a wound, while 
some inferior organisms live though cut to pieces. A 
carriage may lose a wheel without great danger ; for a 
locomotive it is a catastrophe. 

At this very time civilization has become an immense 
machine whose workings escape the foresight of the 



38 YOUTH. 

wisest ; it goes on its devilish way, and in the midst of 
its uproar man cries out as he feels himself beneath its 
wheels. 

The recent past leaves us a work grana but incom- 
plete ; it lacks a united spirit, a soul. In face of pro- 
digious accumulation of material strength, of riches, of 
knowledge, we are continuously impoverished in moral 
energy, in fraternity, in faith ; but the greatest failure 
has been man. 

We must produce men who can govern themselves, 
and become masters of the new world in order to ac- 
quire the good that is in it. We can reach this end by 
a return to normal thinking, which is the application 
of the inductive method to all human facts, and, above 
all, to the forgotten realities of the spiritual world ; 
by a return to a normal way of living, — to reverence, 
to a feeling of responsibility, to work, and to simplicity ; 
by strengthening, in a word, the modern spirit as we 
have defined it, and by placing at its disposition all the 
resources with which science has endowed us. 

But is such an undertaking possible? Can youth, 
upon whom in great measure the task will fall, rise to 
the situation ? Has it the knowledge ? 

If the proverb, " As are the fathers, so are the sons," 
is true, — if heredity, if the path already marked out, if 
the surroundings, are the grand determining influences 
of youth, — what awaits that of to-day, if not a con- 
tinuance of our errors ? Are the sons wiser than their 
fathers ? It is rare, but nevertheless it has been known. 
But we will make no conjectures. 



Book Second. 



THE HEIRS. 



The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and 
the children's teeth are set on edge. 

Ezekiel. 



Book Sccontr* 



CHAPTER I. 
THE WORLD OF YOUTH. 

TN society, always and everywhere, youth is the me- 
* dium through which the qualities and the short- 
comings of the social structure best show themselves. 
They appear like the refracted rays of the prism, more 
startling in their separation and in the contrasts of the 
spectral grouping. All the range of colours is there, 
with a vigour of tone which excludes intermediate 
shades. Youth sings the praises of its season in the 
streets, and shouts its fantasies from the housetops. It is 
in it that are found the most serious predilections toward 
vice and the most powerful impulses toward virtue. It 
must necessarily be so. With its natural enthusiasm, its 
habit of jumping at conclusions, and its disregard of 
consequences, youth carries to extremes the work of its 
predecessors. It is pure assumption to say that the dis- 
ciples follow the master. The disciples go too fast for 
that. In general, the masters follow them and strive in 
vain to hold them back. This is true not only of stu- 
dious youth but of all youth. We are at school or col- 
lege till a certain age, and they are not always the best 
lessons which are listened to most closely. The force 



42 YOUTH. 

of example and of impulse is perhaps greater in the 
youth of the people than in those of the schools. Opin- 
ions which take hold of the highest intelligences spread 
among the masses more quickly than one would think. 
Through what hidden interstices do they infiltrate the 
heart of the illiterate herd ? No one knows. But it is 
a fact that a few years often suffice to disseminate cer- 
tain new currents of thought from the university cen- 
tres to the humblest hamlets. When the thought is 
pernicious, its effects are more apparent in proportion 
as it makes its way among a simple-minded people. It 
acts then as alcohol on savages. The youth of the peo- 
ple is perhaps the field wherein the ravages of unwhole- 
some lessons can be most clearly observed. We find 
there rendered in the vulgar tongue practical illustrations 
of this enough to make the hair stand up on one's 
head. 

We cannot watch nor study youth too closely. 
Without our suspecting, it gives as many lessons as it 
receives. 

Some, it is true, speak of it only under their breath 
and with a shrug. For them, youth means disrespect, 
conceit, and a satisfied ignorance that criticises what it 
does not understand. It is the age of irreverence, folly, 
and noise, which follows its breakneck course, without 
regard for any one, through the peaceful habits of sober 
citizens. 

Others speak of youth cynically always, with a smile 
of connivance which recalls the old augurs. For them 
youth is synonymous with riot and disorder. Men of 
pleasure, who regard life not as a sacred deposit but as 



THE WORLD OF YOUTH. 43 

so much pocket-money to throw away right and left 
at a show, consider that young people are lucicy to be at 
the top, when they themselves have long since reached 
the bottom of the purse. 

A third class of people there is, who consider youth 
as in the way, with the malevolence of an old father 
who knows that his son is waiting for his money. 
They bear youth ill-will because it is full of life and 
enjoys the sunshine and will probably survive them. A 
bad disposition this ! It is like turning to the coming 
spring the scowling forehead of departing winter. It 
will not hinder the grass from growing and the flowers 
from blooming. 

It is true that youth has given some justification for 
these different ways of looking at it. There is an irrev- 
erent youth, a youth of dissipation, a youth longing 
for its patrimony, and lacking not only tact toward 
those who are nearing the end of life, but gratitude for 
the service they have rendered. There are conceited 
youth, who fancy that nothing can go rightly without 
them ; and Heaven knows how irritating they are ! 
But all these extravagances are but one aspect of the 
world of youth. I readily admit that in certain of its 
details it is as bad as possible, that it is the delight of 
blockheads and the despair of the wise ; but notwith- 
standing all this, I affirm that there is in it material of 
the very best. It is too often forgotten ; and this for- 
getfulness, this lack of confidence and of observation, 
is a great misfortune. 

I have never looked at a child's head at some grace- 
ful period in its development without being struck 



46 YOUTH. 

the best blood of humanity as a reverent and faithful 
heir of the treasures of the past, to increase and hand 
them on to the future. Its watchword is: Begin 
anew, ever begin anew ! 

Let us never forget this. In reviewing contemporary 
youth, its weaknesses, its shortcomings, let us remember 
this for our comfort. It is a never-failing source of 
courage, of healing, of alleviation ; it is the true fountain 
of youth, whose source is hidden in the dark recesses of 
a soil man's hand can never reach. 



INTELLECTUAL ORIENTATION. 47 



CHAPTER II. 
INTELLECTUAL ORIENTATION. 1 

QRIENTATION is, in general, no slight affair. That 
^ this manifold, rich, incomparable thing we call life 
may find in the soul of man a representation, not com- 
plete, but adequate and above all harmonious, what 
a union of efforts must there not be ! Life is always, 
and in all ages, a problem ; but there are epochs when the 
solution seems to be more or less found. The sons, 
then, have but to step in the footprints of their fathers. 
But this is not the case in our day. Our fathers left 
off in uncertainty. Under nearly all its forms the 
grand problem of life has now assumed a critical char- 
acter. In whatever quarter of the horizon we look, a 
silent sphinx is seated. Such are the environments of 
our youth. Would that it were beset by circumstances 
only, and left free to disentangle itself ! But men have 
intermeddled to interpret things according to their own 
fashion, to pervert them to their necessity, and to 
exercise over youthful generations a disturbing in- 
fluence. It is, then, a difficult task to characterize such 
a state of things. As well strive to fix the shifting 

1 Orientation, which is here used figuratively, is defined by Web- 
ster : " The process of determining the points of the compass or the 
east point in taking bearings/' 



48 YOUTH. 

picture of the waves. We will try, nevertheless, but with 
the feeling that we shall fall far short, though we speak 
only of things seen and lived. 

We will begin by considering the great current of 
thought which is met oftenest in the world, and which 
is the logical sequence of the situation created by the 
departing century. Next after this we will examine the 
reactionary movement, that we may end by showing 
certain signs of a new point of view. 

When the young man fitted by special studies has 
doubled the cape of his first examinations and reached 
the university, two great tasks await him, — to assimilate 
a curriculum, and to form a conception of the world. 
The first is necessary to a career ; the second if he would 
become a man. Of these two tasks one is as strictly 
defined, as scrupulously regulated, as the other is left 
to chance. Let us speak of the first. It is study in 
its true sense. What principally distinguishes our 
studious youth in this connection is its warm interest 
in knowledge. There are to-day numbers of hard- 
working young men in all its departments. Among 
what may be called the Site of intellect work is 
rough and severe. It is not rare for a student to shut 
himself into his room, bar his door, and live for a time 
the life of the cloister. Necessity, besides, urges him on. 
To attain a result it is not enough to employ the proper 
methods, there must be that sustained application, that 
abnegation, which the assimilation of scientific facts de- 
mands. Formerly personal application, research, the 
introduction of new facts were of more importance, be- 
cause everything was yet to be done. Each domain 



INTELLECTUAL ORIENTATION. 49 

had any number of unexplored comers. Now that 
kind of activity has decreased, and the other, the study 
of assimilation, has increased. Before investigating and 
thinking for one's self, which is the delight of the in- 
tellectual life, it is necessary to open laboriously a 
road across the mountains of information accumulated 
by others. One is full of zeal to set out and explore, 
full of curiosity as to everything ; but stop, — there are 
so many instructions to receive, so many provisions to 
take along, that one grows old and has spent one's best 
energies in preparation. Intellectual youth enters on 
unknown contests with the impossible which are tragic 
to behold. 

The first result of this kind of work is overtraining, 
a sort of hyperesthesia of the receptive faculties, with 
a crushing of individual effort under this extraneous 
material, and mental barrenness. The other result is 
increasing specialization. The force of circumstances 
confines each man to his own department. This is 
particularly true in the exact and natural sciences, where 
the limits are clearly defined. In literature, history, etc., 
it is difficult not to look occasionally out of the enclosure ; 
but there also the mass of material obliges a man to 
keep within bounds, and when he aspires to some wide 
range shuts him up in the narrow limits of a precise 
period. Thus, little by little, the survey of adjacent 
provinces is lost. With a maximum of trouble we gain 
a minimum of pleasure, and our horizon is narrowed. 
This is not a loss peculiar to our country. It is a con- 
sequence of the existing state of human knowledge. 
The material collected is enormous, and it is not yet set in 

4 



50 YOUTH. 

order. Knowledge exists only in fragments. No one 
can conceive its entirety, nor, above all, declare its role 
in the harmony of human affairs. It thus comes about 
that a man is interested in his own specialty only. 
The privilege of ignoring facts foreign to his own 
province has long been allowed the scholar. Youth 
necessarily takes advantage of this privilege. What 
other course has it ? But the necessary consequence of 
this intellectual rigime is the difficulty of generalization, 
and the difficulty, nay, the impossibility, of forming a 
conception of the world. 

We have now reached the second part of the task 
which is incumbent on youth. Whether or no, each 
one makes his own philosophy. When it is not 
positive, it is negative, and it is no small shame to a 
man to be obliged to write " Nothing " when he is asked 
what are his views of life. 

In this respect the life of studious youth of to-day is 
very different from that of its predecessors. They re- 
ceived a different kind of education. They were held 
fast by many ties to old traditions and ancient beliefs. 
The great humanizing breath of the last century still 
affected them. They lived in a part of that complex 
heritage, thinking at the time that they lived only in 
what they knew. Thus in the midst of these great 
agglomerations of cities, many workers, shut up in too 
close air, owed their vigour and their health to the 
robust constitutions they had brought from the fields. 
Their successors of the second and third generation 
live less easily, and succumb in a place where perhaps 
the others would have thrived, thanks to their healthful 



INTELLECTUAL ORIENTATION. 51 

antecedents. It is the same in the province of thought 
with the youth of to-day. Its predecessors have cleared 
the field of all that constitutes the domain of general 
ideas, — that vast spiritual capital which thousands and 
thousands of years of human thought had slowly laid 
away in the depths of the soul, as the array of fauna 
and flora long since disappeared have left their im- 
print in geologic strata. There is lacking to these last 
comers, too, a number of advantages from which their 
fathers profited without suspecting it ; and it is on this 
account that they sometimes find the new generation 
strange. But when we look closely at it, we are not 
surprised. 

Our work has increased and become complex, and the 
conception of the world and mankind which has sprung 
from materialism no longer gives the worker satis- 
faction. Why so much labour to beautify, direct, and 
investigate a life which is only nothing? Why so 
many pains, if, after all, goodness, justice, truth, are 
only idle fictions, and if universal vanity enwraps as 
well our knowledge as our ignorance, our most noble 
efforts as well as our most ignoble indolence ? 

To this must be added the uncertainty which has 
sprung up with regard to knowledge itself. The genera- 
tions which preceded us had replaced the old beliefs with 
a new one, — the belief in knowledge. What Renan 
wrote in 1848 may serve as the expression of opinion 
of a host of men, still living, who for many years have 
directed thought : " For myself, I know but one result of 
science ; it is to solve the enigma, to tell man definitely 
the names of things, to explain him to himself. It is to 



52 YOUTH. 

give him in the name of the only human authority — 
that is, the whole of human nature — the symbols which 
religion gave him ready-made, and which he can no 
longer accept. Yes, there will come a day when man 
will believe no longer, he will know ; a day when he 
will know the world of metaphysics and morals as 
he knows already the physical world. " How strangely 
these words sound to our youth ! Hardly half a century 
is behind them, yet they seem to come from the depths 
of the far-off past. There is an abyss between elderly 
and mature men and the young generation of scientists. 
The latter love science; but how far they are from 
thinking that we know the physical world, and how 
much farther still from thinking that we can know the 
world of morals or even of metaphysics ! Many of 
our young contemporaries, in default of a better, 
have adopted the philosophy of the unknowable ; thus 
establishing at least a negative category to mark the 
place of the appalling and tremendous horizons which 
stretch away to the infinite, beyond human knowledge. 
A clearer separation between its different provinces no 
longer allows them to class as knowledge all the forms 
through which the real is accessible to us. Here is the 
starting-point for a number of new prepossessions, to 
which we will return later, for they are cherished by a 
few. The greater number have drawn for themselves 
another conclusion. The contradictions of science, 
opposing systems deduced from the same facts, analy- 
sis as exaggerated as questionable applied to human 
thought, have shaken for them the very foundation of 
knowledge, which, after all, is only a confidence in 



INTELLECTUAL ORIENTATION. 53 

the existence of men and things. They are no longer 
sure of anything, no more sure of knowledge than of 
conscience. 

It is for this reason that our young workers generally, 
though ardent, are not enthusiasts. Their ardour has 
its source in those unknown depths whence comes to 
man his best aspirations, and which connect him with 
the real notwithstanding his ignorance and his voluntary 
shortcomings. Enthusiasm would be the same ardour 
with the addition that it had taken cognizance of itself 
and its ideal. But this is a thing positive science can- 
not permit to its disciples. How many are there, of 
these young lives, laborious and needy ! New ascetics 
they, who by reason of cultivating in themselves knowl- 
edge as the one thing only, end by condemning them- 
selves in everything else to inanition. When some day 
the future shall have completed the synthesis of the 
vast total of materials which we are preparing, and 
when our descendants shall enter on one of those 
periods of life, broad and complete, where humanity, 
in possession of its formula for a time, pursues its march 
in peace and security, it will be grateful beyond expres- 
sion to these workers who labour over detail without 
daring or being able to rise to the whole. Their merit 
is the greater in that they have less of hope. 

How long a time could one live thus in complete 
spiritual anarchy, without a firm base, without a homo- 
geneous direction ? 

There are many and significant indications of unrest 
among the best minds. Youth, as it comes, asks its 
way. It is answered : There is but one, — knowledge. 



54 YOUTH, 

It dashes forward ; but hardly has it set out when ten 
roads present themselves instead of one. It is urged in 
the most opposite ways, and aiways in the name of 
knowledge. It hears the title of knowledge refused to 
morality, to history, to psychology. Out of its reck- 
oning, it is in doubt as to its course. The situation is 
serious. The better minds disagree, and lose courage 
in the long run. The superficial or commonplace get 
out of it more easily; they declare in a very short 
time that the pros and cons are equal, and they, like the 
others, become sceptics. 

Instructors and men qualified to judge have declared 
on many occasions, in these latter times, that scepticism 
has not affected the youth of France, that the spirit of 
the nation was opposed to this malady as well as to pes- 
simism. Alas ! though one is a Frenchman and a Gaul, 
one is no less a man, exposed to the dangers which 
exclusive tendencies have created in human nature. 
When we elevate one human faculty into the only ar- 
biter and the supreme law, we can be very sure that 
we not only wrong the others, but that what we wish 
to establish on their ruins is seriously compromised. To 
live at all, man must be alive everywhere. Certain 
extreme and debilitating regimens induce indifference 
and scepticism, no matter what their latitude or their 
nationality. The truth is, that thoughtful youth which 
tries to account to itself for things, and desires to reach 
the light about itself, has suffered for a number of 
years. It has known scepticism thoroughly and entirely, 
and is still far from a cure. 

This state of mind is largely shown in the writings of 



INTELLECTUAL ORIENTATION. 55 

the younger generation. We recognize throughout 
these productions minds which have suffered severe 
mutilation, and which on that account can traverse the 
immensities of history and of the soul without meeting 
anything but nothingness. These writings, by way of 
compensation, in all that concerns external mechanism 
are usually extraordinary. It is natural to see youth 
put into its work an ardent spirit, and one so sure of 
itself, so absorbed in its own enthusiasms, as to be care- 
less of form. We have under our eyes the exact 
contrary, — much facility, little inspiration, and still less 
assurance. Here is what Monsieur SuUy-Prudhomme 
writes as to poetry in especial, in the preface to a book 
by a youth, which is a direct exception to the present 
rule, Jeunesse pensive poSsies de A. Dor chain : " There 
has never, perhaps, been more verse published in France 
than during these last years, and these verses are for 
the most part well done. Nearly all beginners astonish 
one by a singular precocity ; the most secret artifices of 
versification are familiar to them, they are accomplished 
virtuosos, — in a word, they know their trade. But 
never has the trade been more clearly distinguishable 
from the true art, for it must be said that those who 
have cleverness are much more numerous than those 
who have inspiration." 

Charming literary forms covering an abyss of disillu- 
sion ! In truth, wherever we look, in literature as in 
art, we are face to face with the same heart-breaking 
phenomenon. One meets only dainty and delicate 
expressions, the sentiments of men who believe in noth- 
ing. In philosophy, the sciences, the arts, the decay of 



56 YOUTH. 

principles is complete. Youth arrives on the field like 
the volunteer companies in long wars, when affairs are 
well under way. On all the roads where it would ad- 
vance it sees stragglers returning, who have thrown 
away their arms and declare that nothing can be done. 
It requires much less energy to go toward the unknown, 
even when most formidable, with a glow of hope at 
heart, than to take the mental roads where one meets 
every instant the vanquished and wounded. The grand 
horizons of thought therefore are almost deserted. 

I mention only incidentally a certain dilettanteism 
which interests itself in everything and holds to noth- 
ing. How shall we consider this au serieitx without 
becoming the object of the indulgent irony of its adepts ? 
This aifected and unwholesome turn of mind has none 
the less had a great influence over youth. There has 
been in these days only too great a number of men, 
young in years but blighted by premature decay, who, 
without affirming or denying, without believing or 
doubting, are seated on the edge of the arena to observe 
the vanity of human thought and of all that is done, 
and are satisfied to smile where others give their heart, 
their life, their blood. 

The religious feeling in such a state of affairs can be 
imagined. Among those who have not received special 
instruction in their youth, there is none whatever. 
Others have seen their childish beliefs give way at the 
first contact with scientific negations. Among those 
who have preserved traces of a religious education, it is 
rather because of the persistence of their impressions 



INTELLECTUAL ORIENTATION. 57 

and habits than by reason of any mental process. 
Divided between a certain mode of thought and the 
operations of science, they live in two worlds. It is a 
modus vivendi between the heart faithful to its memo- 
ries, and the intellect which no longer recognizes them. 
There is, on this subject, in many young minds an 
incredible but touching medley of contraries. Some- 
times this heterogeneous medley begins to ferment, and 
then those who have made it the whole of their 
spiritual life experience rude shocks and cruel suffer- 
ings. Still, in general, it can be said that the Voltairian 
spirit has disappeared. There is a special variety of it 
confined to-day to some fanatics of free thought, and 
unhappily to the lower orders. There has been uttered 
such a prodigious quantity of nonsense in the name of 
free thought, that those who pride themselves on culture 
dread to be suspected of it. But it begins to be under- 
stood that religion is the chief thing to the individual 
and to society, and not an imposture or disease. We 
are moving upward ; in the chapter w r hich we call " The 
Paths of To-morrow," we shall have the pleasure of 
pointing out a new current in that direction. 

It is natural that the class of youth which gives 
itself to religious study as a vocation or career should 
occupy an exceptional position. We will content our- 
selves by noting some drifts of thought in it. The 
first distrusts the modern spirit in general, and in- 
trenches itself in the traditions of its respective churches ; 
it can perhaps be classed as reactionary. Another, 
stirred to its depths by contemporary negations, swerves 
in their direction, and little by little loses sight of 



58 YOUTH. 

spiritual realities, and despairing of saving anything 
from tradition and faith, is finally engulfed in doubt. 
The third clears itself laboriously a road toward a new 
belief, where the past is joined to the conquests and 
necessities of the present. By this small number, 
unsparing toward self and lovers of truth and justice, 
is worked out the interesting evolution of the hour 
from which shall go forth the religious thought of 
to-morrow. 

Here as everywhere, alas ! in too great numbers are 
the lukewarm, the slothful, and the clever, who go 
whither the wind and impulse drive them. 



MORAL ORIENTATION. 59 



CHAPTER III. 

MORAL ORIENTATION. 

T F such be the situation in the domain of the intellect, 
* what is it in the domain of morals ? It is in vain 
that we try to separate the idea of morality from the 
intellect. There is no such thing as an independent 
morality. Nothing in man is independent of the sum 
total of human tendencies. Each is conditioned on an- 
other, and is reciprocally affected. At a certain epoch 
bold spirits flattered themselves that they had suspended 
morality in space. They suppressed faith to maintain 
morality. They believed in morality, and transformed 
it into a dogma. Good, evil, and the rights of men 
were to them the supports of the world. They were 
both wrong and right, — right in admitting that the 
moral world has its eternal laws, discovered and rati- 
fied by conscience, and better discerned little by little by 
humanity in its slow ascent toward the light ; wrong 
in admitting that conscience can communicate with 
reality if the intellect is declared useless. If a man is to 
a certain extent incapable of knowing the truth, he is 
also incapable of distinguishing good from evil. If 
the reason, if dogma, which is, after all, the expression 
which the intellect tries to give to the higher realities, are 
not empty hallucinations, — if they do not include under 



CO YOUTH. 

a logical or symbolic form portions of that which is, — 
conscience herself also is powerless. The conclusion 
which we have drawn is the logical one. The destruc- 
tion of moral principles has corresponded, first and last, 
with the destruction of general ideas. This age has 
i not, like some others, known brilliant personalities who 
represent in the eyes of the young the epitome of a 
whole age, and who have been to them, from their chairs 
in the universities, a note of inspiration and a general 
watchword. There are, however, professors outside the 
universities to fill this mission ; but, alas ! of a different 
character. These leaders of the day are writers, more 
particularly of romances, who have most broadly assim- 
ilated the realistic conception of the universe, and are 
now among the professors of fatalism. More positive 
than the scholars, as are those who take their knowledge 
at second hand, they have knocked together, out of the 
rudimentary ideas of an infant physiology, a complete 
psychology and a complete sociology. Making pre- 
tence of an absolute positivism, they have everything 
divided, weighed, and measured. Imperturbably, hav- 
ing cut, as they think, the human heart into thin slices 
as others have cut and photographed the brain, they 
expose it in detail, demonstrating its mechanism, and 
labelling its fibres. Their writings, in which they say 
with so much skill and assurance the most untrust- 
worthy things, become fountain-heads. After the 
vulgarizers of the first degree come those of the second, 
the third, the tenth, each more positive than the last. 
Youth has read and accepted much of this literature, 
which seems to it the final utterance of science applied 



MORAL ORIENTATION. 61 

to humanity. At this very moment, notwithstanding 
certain new and favourable indications, it is strongly 
intrenched among the mass. Not only have liberty, 
responsibility, good and evil in the old acceptation of the 
term, no more meaning, but all the individual respon- 
sibility of man in his destiny is considered problem- 
atical. Some deny it peremptorily. We hear fluent 
discussions on unconsciousness, irresponsibility, heredity, 
crimes of the passions, — all things which should be 
treated with the greatest reserve from their gravity and 
privacy, yet which circulate in young heads, as the doc- 
tors circulated in our veins a certain German lymph be- 
fore knowing whether it were not the worst of poisons. 
There has resulted from this an ethical condition es- 
pecially distressing and dangerous at the time when are 
formed those traits of character which always remain 
in our moral physiognomy. No one can deny that 
the feeling of responsibility, that basis of individual 
conduct, has been seriously weakened. 

Nevertheless, the point of view of an outspoken ma- 
terialistic morality is left behind, and moral ideas have 
passed through a still more perilous phase to acquaint- 
ance with dilettanteism and scepticism ; thus paralleling 
the movement in the domain of the intellect. We have 
undergone successively all these dislocations. After nega- 
tion, brutal, curt, and self-confident, has come the period 
of indifference, of doubt, and at last of dispassionate 
curiosity. Why deny rather than affirm? What do 
we know about it ? To question oneself as to whether 
things are good or bad is as puerile as to question whether 
they are true or false. A superior mind does not trouble 



62 YOUTH. 

itself with such trivialities. It looks on at moral pheno- 
mena, whether objective or subjective ; it judges neither 
itself nor any one else, and wraps itself in a vague 
sentiment which is universal good-will or universal in- 
difference, we cannot tell which. One of these minds, 
freed from those trivialities for which so many poor, 
brave martyrs have already died and are still dying, 
said : " We owe the gospel a great debt of gratitude ; 
for in purifying our conscience it has given to sin all 
the attraction of a forbidden fruit." Others, speaking 
of the most heart-breaking phases of immorality and 
decay, say : " The times grow interesting and amusing. 
The most diverting follies offer themselves- in crowds, 
for our indulgent curiosity." It is useless to insist 
further on a thing known of the whole world. Our 
intellectual youth, according to its age, its degree of 
culture, the special career to which it destines itself, has 
passed more or less through all the stages we note, and 
notwithstanding the incessant modifications which are the 
sign of a restless and investigative age, it offers examples 
of all the states of mind through which its favourite 
authors have passed. 

This twofold dislocation, intellectual and moral, of 
which we are speaking, has resulted in weakening the 
perception of reality and in lessening activity. 

Let us speak now of the first. The perception of the 
real consists in seeing thoroughly what one sees, in 
feeling thoroughly what one feels, in understanding 
thoroughly what one understands, in interesting one- 
self and taking part, in believing that a thing actually 



MORAL ORIENTATION. 6) 

exists : there is no better phrase to express my thought 
than this. To believe that a thing actually exists — be 
it the establishment of a fact, material, intellectual, or 
moral, a colour, a perfume, a good glass of wine, or a 
good action — is the sign of perfect health and vital 
integrity. All physical or moral perturbations diminish 
this parent faculty ; but it is weakened, above all, when 
by reason of turning things over and over, analyzing 
them from every point of view, distrusting them 
entirely, " looking for noon at fourteen o'clock," and 
juggling with our thoughts, our feelings, and our con- 
sciences, we inflict on ourselves a kind of vertigo of 
our whole being. It is absolutely contrary to nature 
that man's intelligence or conscience can look at pros 
and cons without being interested more in one than the 
other. It is fatally unsettled by all this, and through 
adapting itself to all sorts of contraries becomes de- 
formed and puerile. It is natural that man should 
interest himself in what passes within him, not as 
though it were an idle pastime, but a fixed and im- 
portant fact. He must put himself into it ; he must 
be it. Otherwise he retains no more impressions of 
what he has received than a mirror. He loses at the 
outset the perception of reality „ the right of good 
sense. He loses, also, reverence, which is our way of 
estimating reality. The dilettante, the sceptic, the 
sophist, lose reverence. All their politeness, all their 
smiles at phenomena, are only a form of contempt. 
But he who loses reverence for things loses still more 
that for words, which are only the reflections of thing 5. 
He will juggle with words as well as ideas. Where, 



64 YOUTH. 

then, is truth ? If words are no more to be depended 
on, in what shall we trust ? We shall be among people 
who think it as intellectual to change their words as 
their ideas, and convert them endlessly. From this 
simulated world this will pass rapidly into life. Our 
society, old and young, begins to be greatly affected by 
lack of reverence and lack of truth. One has only to 
look at the press, that ugly photograph of our world, 
to see by a thousand examples to what abuse speakers 
and writers can descend when, in the entire absence of 
fixed principles to regulate judgment and conduct, 
words are only the shadow of a shade. In truth, the 
interest which attaches itself to these chameleons who 
change their colour at their pleasure, declare black 
white, and present a fact favourably or unfavourably at 
will, is for youth a most detestable example. To have 
but one colour and one view of a question is monoto- 
nous ; it shows a mind without resource. He who 
knows how to live has many strings to his bow, and 
can duplicate, triplicate, and multiply himself. Old- 
fashioned duplicity is only child's play, in comparison 
with that of men who form by themselves alone an 
anonymous society, of which no member is responsible. 
All this holds together and follows like the links of a 
chain or the cogs of a gear. But we have not done. 
After the disintegration of the right appreciation of 
things, comes the disintegration of activity and energy, 
as an inevitable sequence. When, passing through 
negation, uncertainty, instability, incoherence, and in- 
tellectual and moral gymnastics, we have reached the 
highest point in the unreal, ideas lose all force. A 



MORAL ORIENTATION. 65 

certain fixity of thought is necessary to produce action ; 
the man must be identified with his ideas. Action is 
incompatible with too great mobility of mind. A 
mind which vibrates again and again, and always with 
equal interest in every impression, is like a field which 
is reploughed and resown every week. There is no 
need to trouble about the harvest. Each labour de- 
stroys the last. But not only is the will sterilized ; 
step by step we come to despise real life and action. 
Nothing is more alluring than this perpetual sloughing 
of the inner man, on which we have our eye fixed as 
on a kaleidoscope. The world of action is a grosser 
plane, where men of limited abilities are engaged. 
" The characteristics of the most admired among men 
of action are at bottom only mediocre." In formulating 
this prodigious maxim Monsieur Renan has expressed 
the views of many contemporaries, especially the young, 
whether distinguished or not. It may be objected to 
these dainty thinkers, that man is always mediocre to 
some other man. A good soldier, I fancy, would be a 
mediocre comedian, a skilled prize-fighter a mediocre 
acrobat; and, judged by one of those examples of con- 
tortion which are called men -serpents, even Milo of 
Crotona would be mediocre. 

The will becomes atrophied when belief is gone. To 
persuade a person that he is incapable is to make him act 
as an incapable. How many young children richly en- 
dowed have had their wits blunted and annihilated by 
teachers who always treated them as fools ! By con- 
tinual snubbing and discouraging, one ends by making 
them self-distrustful. It is the same with all human 

5 



66 YOUTH. 

aptitudes. The will has been subjected to deplorable 
influences in our day, whose ill-omened aggregations 
have resulted in weakening and enervating it. One 
of these destructive influences is the wind of fatalism 
which has blown over us. Why exert oneself to 
struggle ? There is no individual initiative. An in- 
contestible necessity rules the soul and the world. To 
reform self, to fight the passions, the besetting sins, or 
to rise against the evils of society, is folly. Leave all 
that for the poor in spirit. Leave to them their inno- 
cent craze of getting themselves burned and crucified 
for the good of others; but pray let us not imitate 
them ! Ideas like these are poison to youth. 

It is in the order of things for the impressions of its 
age to be lively and wholesome, for youth to take hold 
of a thing impetuously, to create for itself an ideal, to 
be full of enthusiasm for noble deeds and noble char- 
acters, to act with that ardour which has made us love 
even its exaggerations and imprudences. But all this 
has greatly changed. In place of the dishevelled heads 
of old, symbolic of so many eccentricities, we now see 
locks neatly brushed over brows that have done with 
all illusion. Our best youth seems so reserved, so 
hesitating, that some think it too wise. Without 
doubt we should here make great allowance for cir- 
cumstances. Even without the problems of intellect 
and morals, which they have to face, there remain on 
its hands many serious causes for anxiety. But it is no 
less true that the intellectual and moral orientation of 
the last generations is of a kind to paralyze action. It 
is a double misfortune when it introduces itself in an 



MORAL ORIENTATION. 67 

epoch like this. When we consider the life which 
awaits our youth, the labours and efforts which it 
ought to produce, we are seized with an invincible 
hatred of those doctrines of nothingness which have 
been for so many years the greater part of its nour- 
ishment. Enough of negations! enough, above all, 
of jugglers and poseurs ! Give us men of faith and 
action, of love and hate, with a clear^seeing eye, a 
breast that throbs, a vigorous arm ; men who, emanci- 
pated from idle fancies and the empty din of words, 
are silent, and putting their hands to the plough, drive, 
as their witness, a straight furrow in the field of life. 



68 YOUTH. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE SCHOOL OF LIFE. 

QUESTIONS of an intellectual and moral character 
are not the only ones that urge themselves upon 
our youth. We might even say that the greater number 
are entirely outside their pale, — all the youth of the 
people, for instance, to whom these things exist only 
vaguely. We shall take occasion to speak of this class. 
But even among studious youth these questions do not 
concern the majority ; and the minority, troubled and 
occupied with the grave problems of the day, finds it- 
self broken in upon by the practical. Outside the 
sphere of universities, surrounding it as the waves do 
an island, stretches the great school of life. 

To investigators and thinkers, as well as to' those 
whom research appalls or does not interest, and who 
make themselves a summary of philosophy from crumbs 
picked up at hazard, the world of reality is that which 
demands attention and imposes its conditions and its 
example. Theories of philosophy, systems of morality, 
and religious doctrines are one thing; life is quite 
another. Its lessons are more powerful than theories, 
for good or evil. That which passes in politics, in 
finance, in the trades, in the daily come and go of the 
world, the relations between comrades and friends, the 



THE SCHOOL OF LIFE. 69 

family relations, — all these cannot fail to influence 
growing minds. They are, too, moulded by party 
spirit, or at least influenced by it. Youth is a nursery 
where the future is growing. It is right and fair for it 
to take a hand in what is passing, and to try to develop 
itself in the right direction. This direction for men in 
the battle of life is their own. In the midst of their 
struggles they look to the future and scan it for help. 
An action so direct and so energetic as to amount almost 
to moral violence often results. 

This irruption of life into the mind of youth makes 
itself felt, especially in questions of the future. From 
day to day the number of young men embracing prac- 
tical careers increases, and these grow more and more 
crowded. As a result of this the desire of success be- 
comes so pressing as to dominate everything, It is a 
preparation on a small scale for the grand struggle for 
existence which goes on everywhere in the field of 
economics. It is difficult to think of anything else 
when one has entered this treadmill of material inter- 
ests. But even those whose studies do not bring them 
daily face to face with figures and economics, and who 
are preparing for the liberal professions, cannot escape 
the cares of the morrow. Material life, and all that 
combination of complications and needs which it brings, 
forces itself on their attention, and intermingles con- 
stantly with the ideas which they form of men and 
things. The adage primo vivere y deinde philosopbari is 
one of those to which the young man of to-day accus- 
toms himself in spite of himself. 

The desire of success is that legitimate ambition of 



70 YOUTH. 

every man to take his place in the world and secure his 
livelihood. It is the duty of a young man of sound 
mind to concern himself with this ; and the position of 
him whom fortune raises above these petty worries is 
not without serious drawbacks. But there is a great 
difference between a desire for success subordinated to 
the interests of knowledge and conscience, in fine, to a 
higher end, and the same desire when it is the only 
guide and only objective point. The acuteness of 
economic problems, the realistic turn of the mind of 
the day, and the mode of life by which youth is sur- 
rounded, have destroyed in it the equilibrium between 
questions of the ideal and the material. To a large 
number of young men there is but one question, that 
of success. Among these some are modest and are 
content with little, others are greedy and want a great 
deal To succeed is not enough ; it is necessary to push, 
to pass others, to rule. They come to using teeth and 
claws as hardily as the lower animals. They come 
more surely and more appropriately to using finesse. 
This last method is the one practised by those we term 
young diplomats. Let us hang up their portrait 
here. 

Ambitious rather than needy, they despise the vulgar 
struggle. They prefer the tactics of the fox to the fury 
of the wolf. From this realistic age they have learned, 
first and foremost, that facility is necessary for success ; 
and they have laid in a stock of it. Their minds are a 
well-stocked arsenal, of which they know how to avail 
themselves at the proper time. Always of the opinion 
of whomsoever they meet, and, according to circum- 



THE SCHOOL OF LIFE. 71 

stances, cheerful or grave, honest or dishonest, they attack 
men on their weak side. Life for them is a matter of 
business, or better, a chessboard. Sentiments, ideas, in- 
terests of their own as well as others, are the pawns 
which they move dispassionately. To be absorbed in any 
one thing would be ruinous. What among chivalrous 
people would be called a mean action is for them simply 
cool cleverness. They are always careful to cultivate 
those scruples in others whose absence in themselves 
gives them their strength. These young old men are 
unimpressionable ; they never laugh, — a laugh shows a 
weak mind, — but they feel pity, and reserve it entirely 
for their poor friends who, enamoured of sincerity, wish 
to own their advancement in the world to work and merit 
only. Nevertheless the young diplomat will do his ut- 
most to supplant his good friends. He loses no oppor- 
tunity to push himself, to nurse his little reputation, to 
call upon ladies of influence. He knows how to adver- 
tise himself discreetly, so as to appear as if he were 
some one of importance. He is announced as forth- 
coming on the stage of the world, as certain actors on 
their tours put on their placards, "X. is coming." You 
are quite sure that it is not he who placards himself ; he 
is astonished, and complains of this hubbub of fame 
which outrages his modesty. 

As to tender sentiments, the young diplomat dis- 
trusts them. If he ever chances to love, it will be with 
the head. The heart is full of surprises which upset 
all calculations. That must never be. 

My opinion is that he is a man who will make his 
way in the world. At the least he belongs to the class 



72 YOUTH. 

to whom we begin to give the title strong men. He 
possesses, besides, in a high degree the courage of sacri- 
fice. For success he will sacrifice the dearest interests 
— of others. You will succeed, young sir, or I am mis- 
taken. But I do not envy you. Away with you ! 

Let us now occupy ourselves with the multitude — 
alas ! imposing — who swarm about the doors of the 
various callings and demand simply to be placed. They 
are told that to secure a place it is necessary to work, — ■ 
and to keep at it ; and they set to work and keep 
at it if necessary. They make a distinction between 
what is of use to them and what is not. Let us 
lose no time ; time is money. Their world is not 
Creation ; it is a programme. That the infinite should 
perplex any one appears to them contrary to nature ; 
their curiosity causes them no disturbance. Theirs is 
no wild ambition ; they ask nothing better than to 
see all the world succeed ex cequo, — every one must 
live. It is utilitarianism filtered through the realms of 
trade and commerce into that of the office. 

This point of view is no less wretched because 
it is that of a great number of young men who are 
not half bad ; so I will declare myself always on the 
side of those, be they few in number, who have an ideal. 
Happily there are more of them than one would 
suppose. 

Yes, we all agree that one must live. To live is the 
great thing. We are even so strongly of that opinion 
that we demand more than you, because we do not call 



THE SCHOOL OF LIFE. 73 

such a life as yours living. What ! can the destiny of 
man be described as learning a trade to gain his 
bread ? Shall we come into the world with a heart, an 
intelligence, a conscience, and shall we attack mathe- 
matics, history, medicine, Latin, theology, and I know 
not what else, for what, — food and clothing ? Do 
you call that life ? Is it for this that you sweat over 
algebra, retorts, texts, and archives ; that you use the 
scalpel on the dead, and the microscope to discover the 
infinitely small ; that you pass examinations in the dog 
days ? 

It would be better to sleep the eternal sleep in water, 
fire, or under the earth, no matter where, than to live 
such a life ; for, positively, it is not worth the trouble. 
Man does not live by bread alone. He is not simply 
an office-holder, active or retired, or any other worker 
who gets a salary. He is that, without doubt, — he is 
even compelled to work in some fashion ; but for real 
success it is necessary, first of all, that he should be a 
man. Woe to the society where each one's aspiration 
is for a livelihood only ! It reduces life to inferior pro- 
portions, making of it a quarry of appetites or a com- 
monplace formality. We must live ; and if we would 
live as men, we must have as the first thing an aim, a 
love, a hate, — in short, an ideal. If you do not try to 
find this when you are young, you will never find it, 
and you will not know life. It is on this account that 
a higher anxiety should dominate the anxiety as to a 
career, not only in the duties where knowledge and the 
mind is concerned, but in everything. You are study- 
ing philosophy, history, the arts. Very good ; be first 



74 YOUTH. 

of all a man, and you will have the stuff of which 
philosophers, historians, and artists are made. You 
are thinking of becoming an engineer, a merchant, a 
farmer, a superintendent of works. Excellent, if you 
begin by being men. If you neglect that, you will 
be only miserable slaves or oppressors, according to 
circumstances. 

Utilitarianism destroys man ; it curtails all our con- 
ceptions of a practical life. For it there is neither sen- 
timent, nor right, nor noblesse, nor beauty, nor holi- 
ness, — nothing, in short, of what is human ; nothing 
but figures. That which is not worth money or cannot 
earn it is, as a rule, worthless. This is the most fright- 
ful error which can overtake a man ; for that which is 
worth the most in human life is precisely that which 
cannot be bought nor sold. Therefore I consider 
utilitarianism in youth as a calamity. That so-called 
honest disposition of the staid and selfish bourgeois 
is worse than all the vices. A youth of the earth, 
earthy, Heaven preserve us from it ! The beautiful 
name of youth is unfitting for it. Is not youth made 
up of all the enthusiasms and all the ardours which 
lead us to despise utilitarianism ? To be attacked by 
it is to be a prey to senility, to enter into existence 
with a mark of decrepitude. As it is worse to be born 
blind than to become blind, since even the recollection 
of light is missing ; so to begin one's days with utilita- 
rianism is worse than to end them with it, for there re- 
mains at least a reflection of higher things from which 
one has been separated by the slow wear of life. The 
precocious utilitarian has no souvenirs. Consequently 



THE SCHOOL OF LIFE. 75 

to him everything is possible, even shame itself, pro- 
vided it pays. 

We come now to a field, little edifying but still of 
goodly size, and our train of thought leads us to con- 
sider that negative ideal which has laid hold of the great 
mass of our contemporaries and has only too greatly 
affected our youth. I speak of what I shall call pas- 
sive enjoyment. 

Seeking passive enjoyment is the result of the 
lowering of the desires, but it is also a result of the 
material comforts which progress has procured us. 
Civilization, while it increases man's power, diminishes 
his need of exertion, habituates him to ease, and makes 
him avoid hard labour. This result is doubtless incon- 
sistent, since domination over nature is to be had only at 
the price of long and painful exertions. But these exer- 
tions on the part of some have brought corresponding 
ease to others. If it be true that this age has worked as 
no other, it is also true that it has produced an always 
increasing class of privileged beings, who work very 
little or not at all. 

Stimulated by practical realism, which has gained a 
foothold everywhere, repose and freedom from the 
necessity of exertion have become the cherished dream 
of a host of men. An easy life, secure from shocks, 
the life of a man of means, — how many people have 
this ambition for themselves and their children ! The 
result of it is a whole category of jeunesse dor 6, accus- 
tomed to effeminate habits, enamoured of a sedentary 
life, and devoted to languors and idleness of body and 



76 YOUTH. 

mind. Like all those who are accustomed to be served, 
this class of youth is impatient and especially irritable. 
There are none like those who do not work, to find 
that others do not work enough. Accustomed to the 
marvels of science and industry by which they live, 
without knowing the pains they have cost, this youth 
cannot wait. Everything must be done for it quickly ; 
if possible, instantly. It has replaced juvenile impetu- 
osity with the nervous discontent of a little old woman. 
Our accelerated methods, our way of forcing and out- 
raging nature, have created fictitious habits. That time 
is needed for a tree to grow, seems to some a relic of 
the old barbarism that progress has suppressed. They 
would willingly set the pace of their whole life at that 
of express-trains, provided that in the train they had 
their dining and sleeping car. Thus is seen in our 
society a phenomenon often observed in families. Hard- 
working fathers have listless and even idle sons. It 
is a division of labour. Tne fathers work for the sons ; 
the sons rest for the fathers. 

This brings us very naturally to those young men 
whom I shall call the Useless Class, We meet them, 
especially, in easy or brilliant circumstances, — circum- 
stances always pregnant with danger. It is so much 
more to their honour if they escape these perils by 
energy and labour. The example of many young rich 
men who are workers consoles us here for the melan- 
choly spectacle their comrades offer. We will describe 
these idlers. They are very solemn. Their expression of 



THE SCHOOL OF LIFE. 77 

countenance and their dress — at the same time correct 
and careless — bespeak the blase man. A look, like 
that of a pasha half asleep, indicates that the world 
past and present is for their behoof. Let us enter their 
apartment and borrow the description of Legouve, — it 
is exact : " There is nothing to sit on or to sleep on. 
There are only reclining-chairs, rocking-chairs, chairs 
with cushions, broad divans with broad pillows, wadded 
curtains, a fireplace reinforced by hot air, a carpet thick 
as a fleece. And what implements for the toilet ! 
Am I in the room of a princess in the Quartier Breda 
or of the son of a judge ? Implements for the hands 
enough to make one think himself in front of a cut- 
ler's window ! Twenty flasks of different essences ! 
A series of brushes as ingenious as complex ! Some 
are concave, others convex. There are long ones and 
broad ones; there are hard ones and soft ones. All 
simplicity in the house has taken refuge in the father's 
room, or perhaps in the daughter's. The same studied 
elegance appears in the table. Truly, we did not dis- 
dain a good dinner in the old days, and knew how to 
enjoy a good bottle of wine, but we were not learned 
as to all its details. To-day young men are gourmands, 
delicate of taste and hard to please. They have made 
love of comfort into a dilettanteism. i Where is the 
harm ? ' some one asks. The harm is that one cannot 
work in a reclining-chair. The harm is that one be- 
comes a slave to a good carpet and rich food. The 
harm is that one hesitates to undertake a journey, rough 
but advantageous, because one cannot take with one 
all the appurtenances of one's toilet. The harm is that 



78 YOUTH. 

at last a man comes to sacrifice his conscience to his dear 
comfort, and that in all questions of marriage, of pro- 
fession, of public life, — that is to say, all questions of 
the future, of dignity, of honour often, — comfort, the 
tyrant comfort, joins issue with the strictest duties, and 
comes off victorious because it calls itself by a name 
more powerful even than that of passion, the name of 
habit. Yes, habit, that pale companion of old age, that 
melancholy sister of folly, — habit rules many young 
men as love never ruled them. It causes a thousand 
just reproaches from father to son, resented in a 
thousand bitter replies ; from it finally come a thousand 
endless discussions on that real battle-field of the family, 
the question of money." 

And since what we have quoted brings us to the 
subject, let us note, in passing, a great law of the school 
of life, — that youth should know the value of money. 
The great misfortune of parental wealth — above all, 
when it has been made quickly or inherited, and does not 
rest on a basis of actual work — is that the children lose 
their respect for money. To respect money and, even 
when one has a great deal, not to spend it injudiciously, 
is no ordinary quality. It is one of the most complex 
of social qualities ; for it supposes not only conscience, 
tact, in short, the feeling that possession is a social func- 
tion, but it demands besides the wisdom of experience. 
To possess this quality we must, in a word, know how 
hard it is to make money, and what efforts it represents. 
He who does not know this despises it ; or if he attaches 
any value to it, it is only for the pleasure it procures. I 
dwell on this point in the interest of a higher morality, 



THE SCHOOL OF LIFE. 79 

and not — Heaven help me ! — to serve the selfishness of 
some parents to whom evil consists in spending money, 
and good in saving it, and who measure the morality 
of their children by their parsimony. Vice is ex- 
pensive, that is the reason for avoiding it ; virtue is 
cheap, it must be cultivated ; thus they cultivate only 
avarice, the most sordid of all the vices. But let us 
return to the useless class and not leave them. It is not 
at all necessary to belong to the privileged class to be 
of the stuff of which the useless are made. 

This life of royal idleness has so many attractions 
that some who are not able to lead it in luxury lead it 
though they have but a competence, or are even in pov- 
erty. And this is what these artificial parasites want, — 
to lie down in life, as a log lies on the water ; to float 
at the caprice of the wave, to advance, recede, rise, and 
fall, according to the accident of the moment ; pro- 
vided that they do this alone. In the midst of the con- 
flicting influences that move society, amidst the labours, 
the studies, the sufferings of others, they possess the 
serene indifference of those who are fed, clothed, 
amused, and thankless to boot ; they allow themselves 
to be drawn to-day by interest, to-morrow by passion, 
anger, hate, or fear, — again by sensuality and the 
coarser appetites ; at times, for the sake of agreeable 
change, they allow themselves to feel the charm of vir- 
tue, to be lifted to the heights of inspiration in the in- 
tervals between their wallowings in the mire. A noble 
life this ! When we attack these passive creatures and 
exhort them to regain their manhood, we must expect 
to be received with pity. The best that one can hope 



80 YOUTH. 

on the most favourable occasion is to have them 
answer, " What will you have ? I was made so, — I 
cannot help it." Perhaps, if they think you worth the 
exertion, they will quote the words of Montaigne, " I 
do no harm ! I use only my own. If I am a fool, it 
is at my own expense and is no one's business, for my 
folly dies with me and has no successor." But if the 
occasion is not favourable, have a care. They will be- 
come furious, like a beast disturbed in his rest or his 
fits of passion. To have his ways of life upset, how 
can he bear it ? If there is a contemptible act in the 
world, it is to worry people who without trying to in- 
jure any one let themselves glide gently down the hill 
of life. But I am taking a great deal of trouble for a 
class who give themselves so little. 

And yet my heart cries " Beware " to many who 
without being useless let themselves fall into an easy 
life. It is like being caught by a machine from which 
you barely escape alive. An easy life begets cowardice, 
Cowardice begets lies and double dealing. Expedients 
must be resorted to, and direct ways be abandoned. 
Once entered on this life, the most clear-sighted is lost. 

In particular, the passion for play must be specified 
as one of the saddest snares that our youth fall into. 
It gambles much too often. It is one of the diseases of 
the times, one of the forms of its restlessness. All 
classes of society bet on the races, and play among 
themselves, sometimes for large stakes, sometimes for 
small. To increase one's goods or one's gains by a 
stroke of chance, or even, in extreme cases, to demand 



THE SCHOOL OF LIFE. 81 

of chance that it will support one without work, is too 
often attempted. How many people fall asleep at 
night, uttering the name of the horse on which they 
have bet ! Not so outwardly objectionable as drunken- 
ness or debauchery, play is one of the most subtle 
forms of immorality. It makes one of a whole group of 
phenomena, and may perhaps be considered as a symp- 
tom of profound psychological trouble. A man who 
plays loses his hold on reality. The simple and laborious 
sequence of events escapes him. He is merely an ad- 
venturer. Like the people of the year one thousand, he 
expects that the touch of a wand will transform the 
world. Why then should he work ? Soon, Fortune will 
come of herself. While waiting, he will borrow or 
take. Play, in truth, makes a man lose his head, and 
renders possible acts which without it would have been 
impossible. Thereafter he floats with the current. Am 
1 not right in crying, " Beware ! " 

I may add that play kills conversation, one of the 
great charms and great needs of youth. It is an " iso- 
lator." It is a juggler in whose hands the world of 
men and things disappears. 

In one of the most beautiful spots in Switzerland, 
where one can but regret the short time one has for 
admiration, I came upon two young tourists. They 
were about half-way up a most delightful mountain, 
and appeared to be resting. As I saw them from a 
distance, seated with their backs to the landscape, I 
could not account for it ; but as I came near, all was 
plain, — they were playing cards. Four hours later, 
as I returned, I found them in the same place, still 

6 



82 YOUTH. 

playing. Night was falling; returning to the hotel, 
they finished their game there. 

There is still an important subject, — important al- 
ways and everywhere, but more serious in the case 
of youth than in that of their elders. I refer to love. 
It is through it that the general state of society can 
best be seen, and the qualities and defects of its con- 
ception of life. Tell me how you love and I will tell 
you who you are. The character of an epoch is meas- 
ured by the respect with which it surrounds love. The 
criterion of a man's character is not his creed, religious, 
intellectual, or moral ; it is the degree of respect he has 
for woman. When he loses faith and hope, he under- 
values life. If he seize upon it as the one thing cer- 
tain, which he must make use of quickly, he will be- 
little it by that very act ; and his stunted conception 
of the world and man, the absence of the ideal, of true 
poetry, of energy, — all these will find an echo in his 
way of loving as an eloquent and direct commentary. 
Love is surely immortal, and will always be reborn 
from its ashes. Though dragged in the mud, a day 
will come when it will rise younger and more beautiful 
than ever. But it is no less true that individually we 
can destroy in us its freshness. What then is our posi- 
tion as to love ? How does our youth love, how does 
it speak of love, how does it sing of it ? 

Alas, it can easily be shown that on this subject our 
youth is extremely reserved. We touch now a pain- 
ful spot. Distrust, scepticism, and domestic shipwreck 
are everywhere. It is the fashion for youth to discuss 



THE SCHOOL OF LIFE. 8} 

love like the most disillusioned of men. It would seem 
as if it were among the good old things that have dis- 
appeared, and that we have come too late into a world 
too old to experience it again. 

As a general rule, what is lacking is respect for' 
woman, — that cult of woman I might call it, which is 
the sign of vital integrity. She is no longer considered, 
as in certain aesthetic epochs, a being impure and hurt- 
ful, whose presence we should fly. On the contrary, 
she is thought desirable, but at the same time bizarre, 
and, in the long run, in the way. She is a means of 
pleasure, provided we do not have to share her society 
and that we avoid any ties. The chains of love are re- 
placed to advantage by free love. In short, what we 
fluently call love resembles true love no more than the 
constellation of the bear resembles the animal of that 
name. 

When real love exists, and it can never die, it prefers 
to conceal itself. It is therefore rare to meet love -songs 
composed by men still young, and still more rare to 
have this kind of poetry sung in society. 

We no longer hear the old love-songs of our national 
repertoire. Instead, the loves of the vulgar herd are 
sung and resung to satiety. The Venus of the gods is 
less praised than her inferior namesakes. It is impossi- 
ble for me to refrain from saying here what I think of 
these ditties of the times. But my remarks do not apply 
to any author in particular. It is the class of songs I 
have in mind, the way they come to notice, and those 
who sing them over and over until an outsider would 
imagine that there are no others. 



84 YOUTH. 

I find, then, in the songs most in vogue at the moment, 
especially where love is the subject, an after-taste of 
senile libertinism. This savours of decadence and men- 
tal derangement ; and when this same note is continued 
through song after song, and again in similar produc- 
tions is re-echoed everywhere, it becomes fearfully 
tiresome. Far be it from me to reproach this kind of 
literature with its immorality. My intentions must not 
be misunderstood. Perhaps some one will accuse me 
of being splenetic, a kill-joy, a dried-up philosopher, 
thus assuming for himself the beautiful role of one 
who demands for youth the right to amuse itself. I 
myself demand that right and proclaim it. Provided 
the company be such that one can sit in it with self- 
respect, no one shall sing more lustily than I, Gaudeamus 
igitur ; and when we come to the famous per eat couplet, 
where the jovial uproar is apt to arouse the neighbours, 
1 will shout with all my might, pereat diabolus . . . 
atque irrisores, I will think at the same time of what 
really kills joy, — the deadly mirth which consumes in 
its fire all that should be sacred, — that spirit of scoffing, 
in short, which makes too often the burden of these 
songs. What ! in these days and in this land, when the 
youth of a great nation meets and wishes to sing of 
love, shall these be the songs that are chosen to the ex- 
clusion of nearly all else ? No ; you slander yourselves ! 
You cherish better things than these. It cannot be that 
you lack what is lacking in all these productions, — 
poetry, genuineness, freshness, youth. 

But 1 must make haste to say that youth is little to 
blame for the state of things which truth obliges us to 



THE SCHOOL OF LIFE. 85 

picture in such sombre colours. We have left nothing 
undone to bring it to this state. Existing society has 
grave faults with which to reproach itself. How shall 
we speak of the flippancy with which in the family and 
in public love, chastity, and marriage are talked about, 
especially to the young ? It would seem as if their ears 
had been made expressly to listen to jests and doubtful 
witticisms. They are given the most pernicious advice 
in all that concerns respect for woman and for them- 
selves, as if all the wisdom of the ages on this point — 
so dearly acquired and embodied in two or three rules 
not to be violated with impunity — was only puerile. 
The consequences are apparent. In the domain of love 
our youth has suffered grievous wrong. Its predeces- 
sors have left it a baleful heritage of manners and 
literature. This last in especial has passed through 
all degrees of moral laxity till it has reached unbridled 
license. " Under the pretext of art and truth to na- 
ture, the crudest licentiousness is set forth in books 
for young people." 1 But books have been outdone. 
Pamphlets and broadsides bid against one another in 
exciting curiosity. How can youth be exposed to such 
influences without the greatest danger ? Even the 
schoolboy is contaminated. When the passions first 
awake in him, he need not seek immoral literature. 
It comes in the way even of him who does not look 
for it. What kind of a future is this preparing for us ? 
Is it not time to rise in the defence of childhood, the 
family, love, youth, the springs of life, and to hold out 
a hand to that valiant society for the uplifting of public 
1 Jules Lemaitre, Desbats, 16 mars % 1S91. 



86 YOUTH, 

morality which, after having long preached in the des- 
ert, begins to convince the least clear-sighted of its 
usefulness ? 

All that we have said has been to show how example, 
and the habits with which it is surrounded, influence 
youth in the practical orientation of its conduct, and 
exercise on it a pressure as strong and often stronger 
than precepts and teaching. We have as yet looked at 
the question on its negative side only. But its positive 
side is vast. Withdrawn within the sacred grove of the 
muses, in the perfect calm of meditation and research, 
youth runs the risk of becoming isolated, and of losing 
interest in life. It is right that it should hear its echoes, 
and that the great voice of a struggling and suffering 
humanity should reach it. The best corrective of theo- 
ries is always a practical life. If it be full of dangers, 
of evil temptations, of pitfalls, it is full also of aus- 
tere instruction and healthful admonition. Life has, 
too, the great advantage over theories and books, that 
it is less given to cross purposes and subtleties, It is 
real. It is not a little white or a little black, according 
to the fleeting interpretation of a fantasy or a calcula- 
tion ; it is graven in the rock of reality ; it gnashes its 
teeth, cries, howls, and sings : there is blood in it, and 
tears, and joy, and it is likely that he who witnesses it 
will remember it. 

Never, perhaps, has this truth been better verified than 
during the last twenty years. All the world knows the 
condition of our literature and of our internal politics. 
The latter has done, by certain deplorable excesses, for 



THE SCHOOL OF LIFE. 87 

the nation nearly what the former has done for the prin- 
ciples of thought and life. Party spirit is as injurious 
to a country as undue analysis is to moral and intel- 
lectual vitality. 

The great danger of these strifes between compatriots, 
and of that spirit of calumny and detraction which 
has poisoned our public life, is that they produce a 
youth sceptical on the subject of patriotism. How has 
this danger been averted ? In the first place, because 
sickening sights repel rather than attract, and because 
the follies of our predecessors often make us thought- 
ful. Evil, at a certain point, rouses the most reserved, 
and makes them snake off their indifference ; for ex- 
ample, the wretched Boulangist performance which 
roused the whole student world. In the next place, 
because life corrects life, and because, though the politi- 
cians have their place noisily and broadly defined, 
there is something beside, — it is the great and silent 
national industry. Side by side with what fills the 
papers, and an unwholesome publicity magnifies and 
announces to the whole world, are the fruitful labours 
of which little is said, but which are eloquent in 
themselves. 

The children of this land of France have not seen 
their country raise itself slowly during twenty years by 
continuous efforts and persevering work, without per- 
ceiving in themselves the results of such an example. 

thing is finer than to see life fighting its enemi 
The weakest being who repairs his losses and renews his 
courage is interesting. The ants who rebuild their house 
which the passing foot has destroyed, even the tree, 



^8 YOUTH. 

torn by the storm, which sends out fresh limbs, touches 
us and wins our sympathy. Still more does the man 
who, struck down, picks himself up, the vanquished na- 
tion which binds up its wounds, remakes its finances, 
its army, its schools, its commerce, its industries. While 
the negations of a materialistic science and the theories 
of writers lay before us the weakness of the human 
will, a whole people at work gives to these unhealthy 
theories a universal lie. While the politicians in their 
useless struggles discredit liberty itself, democratic 
France brings to its growing institutions, to the modern 
spirit in its entirety, the magnificent evidence of its 
patient resurrection. The heart of youth is magnani- 
mous. It could not remain insensible to these real 
proofs. Out of the depths of the national life has 
come to it a great life-giving wind, which has swept 
away the miasma of theories, and the diseases whose 
seeds had been sown by literature. 

Finally, life has laid hold of youth in a fashion more 
direct still through its contribution to the national de- 
fence. I consider that the profession of arms is most 
salutary, and is of the greatest use to youth in a thou- 
sand ways. There are indeed many things learned in 
this great school which have become rare. Obedience, 
in the first place, — an invaluable thing, which is not 
met everywhere, and which is indispensable in a demo- 
cracy, because it is the mother of all liberty. 

Equality next, which is talked about so fluently, but 
is so difficult to practise. Then exercise, — exercise of 
the will, and physical exercise. A little discomfort is an 



THE SCHOOL OF LIFE. 89 

excellent remedy for effeminate tendencies. There is a 
whole world of philosophy in the long marches, knap- 
sack on back, and at the bottom of the mess-platter. If 
you are not convinced, look at those who return from 
service. What a clear eye they have, what a bronzed 
skin, what sleep, and what an appetite ! All the dilet- 
tanti, all the useless, should be sent to the school of 
war. These virile exercises would open to them hori- 
zons hitherto unknown. 1 will say no more on this 
subject, or I shall get no further. Down with milita- 
rism ! long life to the soldier ! The true soldier is one 
of the most beautiful figures which humanity has pro- 
duced. And whoever loves anything must be a little 
of a soldier, whether he will or no. He must have a 
heart in his body and a sword in his hand. 

I will only mention in passing, as I shall return to it 
later on, the salutary influence which social questions 
begin to exercise on students among the younger gener- 
ation. Nowhere more than here can they find whole- 
some diversion and austere lessons that will rouse 
utilitarians, men without nerve, and those whose minds 
are turned exclusively to theorizing. 

Thus it is that life, with its necessities and its exam- 
ples good or bad, acts on youth, discouraging it or en. 
couraging it in turn. And this which is true of the great 
world is true also of that microcosm called the fam- 
ily. There also those who seek their way are constantly 
at school. Unhappily, how many are the wounds, how 
serious the wear and tear and the uncertainties in those 
intimacies where outside influences and the individual 



90 YOUTH. 

tendencies which result from them, all have their echo ! 
The family is in a state of tension, and the children 
show it. An artificial life, a lack of authority on one 
hand, of respect on the other, strained relations be- 
tween man and wife whose orientation is so different, 
loosening of marital ties, lowering of domestic habits, 
the inroads of outside life and even that of the street 
and gutter in education, — the good is there, no doubt ; 
but the evil is so great, so pervasive. With its igno- 
rance of life and its need to be guided aright, how can 
youth discern its road among so many dangers ! It is 
not surprising that it often goes astray. The fault lies, 
above all, in the situation ; and we shall have to correct 
many irregularities before we realize toward new-comers 
in life the desideratum contained in the precept Maxima 
debetur pueris reverentia. 



THE SHEEP OF PANURGE. 91 



CHAPTER V. 

THE SHEEP OF PANURGE. 

TN all movements, at the heels of the leaders are a 
* crowd who go whither they are urged, — men with- 
out purpose, who follow one current or another as it may 
chance, without understanding what is taking place. 
The spirit of imitation and that of inertia are important 
factors in the world, — above all, in the world of youth. 
" The bulk of every generation is impressionable ; the 
greater number, always and everywhere, are simply a 
flock of sheep/' . This tendency to follow beaten roads 
is rather accentuated than diminished, in our day. 
Among the vulgar errors which fill our heads and 
which pass for absolute truths, is the assumption 
that the past is characterized by immobility, rigidity, 
and poverty of forms, by the absence of the critical 
spirit, and by monotony of thought and habit. We, 
on the contrary, are full of diversity, movement, and 
inquiry. Nothing is more false. Those ancient epochs, 
which seem to us so markedly stable, had none the less 
within their framework of stability a marvellous rich- 
ness of forms, habits, customs, and local originality. 

1 Lavisse : "La generation de 1S90," Bulletin de r Association 
generate des etnd/auts, mm, 1890. 



92 YOUTH. 

They possessed variety in uniformity. We, on the con- 
trary, possess monotony in change. The more change 
there is, the greater the monotony. The thousand forms 
in which life and thought show themselves spread and 
take root rapidly. The crowd accepts them without 
discernment. 

One of the peculiarities of this age of disillusion and 
lack of belief is infatuation. An idea comes to life 
spontaneously ; it grows, spreads, and carries away the 
masses. None so credulous as those who have re- 
nounced all belief. Their need of belief, always under 
repression, turns suddenly to objects which chance and 
caprice alone determine, and which are destined to be 
some day abandoned just as they have been adopted, — 
without apparent reason. 

Everything in this century so rich in invention has 
contributed to produce uniformity. Knowledge has al- 
lowed us, even, to multiply to infinity a single design, 
and to throw it on the world in such a quantity as to 
make it common. The passion for vulgarizing has 
seized the arts. Does a chef d'oeuvre somewhere come 
to light, it is instantly copied in thousands of impres- 
sions, and is seen everywhere so constantly that at the 
end of a few months one is tired of it. The history of 
the most beautiful airs of the operas is the same, — they 
have come down to the hand-organs. For six weeks 
a melody captivates the public, all the world sings and 
whistles it ; after that it is the turn of another. It is 
the same with the greater part of the manifestations 
of art or the social life. 

The great city, with all the machinery of modern civi- 



THE SHEEP OF PANURGE, 93 

lization, has inundated the country with its products, 
and carries on everywhere an unequal contest with spe- 
cial localities. By centralization we have suppressed 
not only all that was unwholesome or narrow in in- 
dividual work, we have suppressed also its strength and 
vigour. Those great levellers — industrialism, bureau- 
cracy, and fashion — have passed over the world and 
crushed out originality. Life and man have been re- 
duced to the same level. Local habits, dress, songs, and 
provincial idioms have disappeared. Now, though one 
travel far, one finds the railway-lines, the stations, the 
hotels, and the theatres as alike as two brothers. The 
country districts, enfeebled, deserted, and discouraged, 
present to the great cities their own image reduced and 
stunted. 

Much might be said on this subject, but the point I 
wish to make is this : Where can ability, originality, 
and the desire to strike out into new paths find a 
place in a world so constituted ? How, think you, can 
youth have any individual character ? Note well, that it 
is almost a heresy to differ from every one else. A fear 
of seeming peculiar shows itself already in dress. No 
one follows the fashion so closely as some young men. 
The\' must have the same hat, the same cravat, the same 
cut of coat, etc. Individuals no longer pass us in the 
streets, but samples, as they say in trade, by the dozen and 
the gross ; and, in truth, it gives a vague impression of 
a factory and of fancy goods to see so man}' creatures 
exactly identical everywhere. The monocle, the cane, 
the gestures, the stereotyped phrases suggest an autom- 
aton. It would not be astonishing to find on them 



94 YOUTH. 

the stamp of a manufacturer or a signature, — as, for 
example, Grtcin fecit. 

Manners conform to the same rule as dress, and ideas 
follow suit. Gradually a rut is made which constantly 
grows deeper. The crowd fall into it one after the 
other. There is but one form of expression in the 
world of thought. Soon the life of the flock of sheep 
becomes the chosen one. If they go outside of it, they 
are like fish out of water. They lose the run of affairs 
and their judgment. They no longer attach a value 
except to that which they have seen, heard, and tasted 
with the crowd. "It was wretched, — there was no 
one there ; it was superb, — a perfect crush." Acknowl- 
edge that this is a serious and grievous state of things, 
from the point of view of the future. The school should 
be a remedy. Where more than there should indepen- 
dence be taught and valued ? But the school has felt 
these surrounding influences. Monsieur Lavisse shall 
speak: "Our inferiority is perhaps the result of the 
error into which we have fallen, that of uniform in- 
struction. We have multiplied colleges; we have 
placed them under the same discipline; we have regu- 
lated the disposition of time, minute by minute; we 
have written, article by article, courses of study with- 
out end. Finally, that no one may escape our rules, 
and that no individuality may be permitted to any 
one, no matter who, we have established at the en- 
trance to all the avenues of intellectual life examina- 
tions which bar out all independent thinkers. Our 
liberty of instruction has nothing in common with 
intellectual liberty. It is reduced to the choice of a 



THE SHEEP OF PANURGE. 95 

master, the option being between a civilian and an 
ecclesiastic. 

" The hold of the school on the mind is one of the 
phenomena of our century. We ought to do the work 
we do in the schools, and we may pride ourselves on 
having done it; but beware. Scholastic culture, as 
we understand it to-day, is dangerous. Its pretensions 
to be encyclopaedic are a snare. It wishes to include 
everything, and for that very reason it is limited. The 
scholar who tries to learn everything learns little ; the 
mind which is surfeited loses its appetite ; a uniformity 
of rules absolutely chokes off all originality." 

To become somebody under such conditions, one 
must have a heart of brass and a head of adamant. 
France has sometimes been reproached for not having 
developed the spirit of colonization. This spirit is really 
that of a powerful personal initiative. To leave fa- 
miliar surroundings demands courage. It demands as 
much courage to become a pioneer in the domain of 
the mind, of habit, of action ; to separate from the 
great majority and take one's own way in pursuit of a 
new ideal. What ardent sympathy ought we not to 
have for every attempt of youth to free itself from the 
slavish burden of routine ! Our greatest hope of being 
drawn from the rut where we are lies in the young men, 
few indeed in number, who have had the courage to live 
as colonists and explorers, and to escape from the 
flock, shepherded, watched, and sheared, — that they 
might create for themselves in communion with minds 
ot their own kind a refuge for times of trouble. 



96 YOUTH. 



CHAPTER VI. 

A FEW WORDS ON PARTY SPIRIT. 

F^vURING our progress thus far, we have encountered 
*-J party spirit several times. It deserves a page to 
itself, for the same reason that one describes at length 
the shape, habits, and depredations of certain noxious 
animals. 

In the modest influence which man has over his own 
life, one of the best rules he can follow is this: to 
take things as they are and try to get the greatest pos- 
sible good from them. A man imbued with party 
spirit practises this rule inversely, and so succeeds in 
getting evil even out of good. He exaggerates his ad- 
versary's faults, and disparages his merits. His evil 
intention neutralizes the good he might otherwise gain. 

The incurable idiosyncrasy of party spirit is its oppo- 
sition to the great human law of solidarity. It creates a 
humanity within a humanity, draws around this elect 
few a well-defined line, intrenches and barricades itself 
within, and allows to be seen from without only thick 
walls, bristling with arms. Henceforth abstract interest, 
justice, and right no longer exist. In their place are party 
interests, party justice, etc. All that the party and its 
supporters do is right. Let others do precisely the same, 
if they are outside the fold, it is wrong. " What is a 



A FEW WORDS ON PARTY SPIRIT. 97 

noxious plant ? Every plant that does not grow in our 
own garden. But your neighbour cultivates precisely 
the same plant as you. Impossible. If he does, he is 
a counterfeiter. We alone are the salt of the earth." 
Such is party spirit. The best horse if he will not 
harness to their chariot is but a donkey. The gold of 
others is false ; their virtues are glittering vices ; their 
beliefs imposture. They have something else to think 
of than separating the good from the bad in an adver- 
sary's action. To suppose him capable of any good 
whatever is, in a way, to go over to the enemy. 

It is not one of the least significant signs of the times 
that this pernicious spirit develops side by side with 
scepticism. It is often the cloak which the latter as- 
sumes. To hide the void within, it shelters itself be- 
hind an imposing front. The fragile reed of a worn 
and worm-eaten conviction is painted to represent iron. 
Thus the greatest infidels, scoffers, revilers, — in short, 
all men who are without that elementary basis of all 
conviction, respect, — have shown themselves in our 
day uncompromising partisans. And this is certainly 
logical. It is rare that he who has followed toward the 
truth the humble path of personal experience, ceases to 
keep in that path. Nay, he goes forward, thinking 
whether he may not get light even from an adversary. 
But he who is nothing and believes nothing, neither 
divine nor human, who is dead, in short, to the truth, 
has everything to gain in assuming the impassible atti- 
tude of party spirit. Its rigidity, which is only that of 
a corpse, gives the impression of firmness. 

Here, without doubt, is one of the great reasons why 

7 



98 YOUTH. 

party spirit has in our day infested politics, religion, 
and science itself. It has worked wonders. Thanks to 
it, for instance, on certain days of defeat men prone on 
the earth with their backs broken have sung victory in 
the press, declaring themselves stronger than ever, and 
burying their opponents — on paper. Thanks to it, 
fanatics — religious, so called — declare questionable, 
acts of self-devotion which are not inspired by a senti- 
ment like their own ; and vice versa the fanatics of un- 
belief accuse as hypocritical the slightest evidences 
of a disinterested spirit in which religion has had a 
part. It is this same spirit which dreams, in time of 
public tranquillity, of disorder and anarchy, because of 
devotion to overthrown dynasties; or which makes 
some declare that monarchical France knew only terror, 
rapine, and tyranny. One man states, ex cathedra, 
" For three centuries history is one vast assault on the 
truth." Another counts the days and years from the 
Revolution ; all that went before is null and void. 

What a beautiful school for youth is this over which 
such a master presides, and under whose regime one can 
say truthfully, " I know that I live in a time of intol- 
erance, where I can expect nothing from those who do 
not think exactly as I do." 1 

That this scowling, surly spirit, which is forgetful of 
all that brings men together, and mindful only of what 
divides them, should appear to some extent in ship- 
wrecked lives ; that it should lay hold on men of mature 
years ; that it should harden the hearts of the old, rousing 
the passions and destroying the pleasures and the fruits 

1 Edgar Quinet : U esprit nouveaiu 



A FEW WORDS ON PARTY SPIRIT. 99 

of life, is sad. But it is a deformity which seems more 
natural to those whom life has maltreated, It is a dif- 
ferent thing to meet this same deformity in the young ; 
there it is hideous. A young man bitten by party 
spirit is a being incomparably odious ; for to assume 
the turn of mind and the appearance of a partisan, — 
his crabbed and unreasonable air, — it is necessary to 
suppress deliberately all native kindliness, all whole- 
some curiosity, and all good impulses. Men who train 
animals are sometimes very cruel to the poor beasts. 
They dig out nightingales' eyes to make them sing 
better, and cut dogs' ears to make them look more 
fierce. Poor beasts ! wicked men ! But what shall we 
say of those who treat youth thus, or of the youth 
which inflicts such mutilation on itself ? 

Nevertheless, party spirit is one of the most powerful 
influences at the time when man takes his bearings and 
chooses his path in life. The timidity of youth, its 
ignorance, its inertia, all predestine it to fall a prey. 
Its impressionable nature, and its resemblance to a flock 
of sheep, of which we have spoken, furnish exactly the 
characteristics desired by the moulders of the profes- 
sion. It can be hardened and manipulated at will. Woe 
to the young men who undergo these influences and 
know not how to defend themselves. They are for 
years, perhaps forever, reduced to slavery, unless, worse 
still, they become themselves fanatics. What a wonder- 
ful product the world is then called to contemplate ! The 
most in earnest in that case are the neophytes. Their 
zeal is the delight of their spiritual fathers. They were 
fierce ; the neophytes are filled with fury. The less they 

PC. 



100 YOUTH. 

know of men and their reasons for action, the more easily 
can they abuse, judge, and condemn them. It is a con- 
test as to which shall use the more violent language, and 
attack with the lesser shame irreproachable adversaries. 
Such a youth is incapable of learning anything. It enters 
life through the little low door of prejudice, shuts itself 
in, narrows down feeling and thought more and more 
each day, and finally becomes deaf and blind even to 
evidence. 

Happily here the excess of evil, even, is sometimes a 
good. Party spirit has set afloat so many scandals, has 
neutralized so many honest and courageous efforts, that 
it is discredited. I foresee a youth who for its better 
protection has chosen this watchword, — Party spirit is 
an enemy. 



HEALTH AND AMUSEMENTS. 101 



CHAPTER VII. 
HEALTH AND AMUSEMENTS. 

T^HERE have been long periods in history when men 
* developed themselves physically at the expense 
of development in other directions, and lived as if they 
had no minds. There have been times, too, when they 
lived as if they had no bodies. In one way it might be 
said that our age has acted as if it had neither the one 
nor the other. Materialistic science, which denies mind, 
claims to have closed forever a host of well-springs 
whence the soul drew new vigour and strength. Then, 
too, we have for a long time neglected physical educa- 
tion. Knowledge is the one thing needful for man. To 
acquire it, everything else must be sacrificed. We have 
produced, as a consequence, cerebral hypertrophy, ab- 
normal intelligences, and bundles of nerves. Existing 
civilization, too, with its feverish haste, the multitude 
of sensations which it imparts to us, the emotions which 
it continually excites, and the refinements of pleasure 
which it procures, has had a fatal influence on our 
nervous system. Life, such as it has now become, exas- 
perates the sensibilities, strains the nerves to the utmost, 
breaks down energy, and weakens the blood. Our 
food itself helps to produce this result. Rich food and 
strong drink are everywhere in demand. One of the 



102 YOUTH. 

contradictions of our age, whose contradictions are so 
numerous that they cannot be specified, is that while it 
has conquered Nature and the natural sciences it has 
carried man farther from Nature than ever. An artifi- 
cial life has been developed. Our means of transpor- 
tation and traffic have congregated in the great urban 
centres the life which was scattered over large districts. 
The large cities have absorbed the most genuine intel- 
ligence and energy of all nations. France has rushed 
into this extreme phase of centralization with rare im- 
petuosity. A state of plethora, of congestion, has little 
by little declared itself in the great centres. The moun- 
tains, the forests, the fields, on the other hand, are de- 
populated. A constantly increasing number of men 
have consummated the divorce, — the most fatal which 
can be consummated, — the divorce of man from 
Nature, from the soil. 

What are the usual environments of our studious 
youth, come from where it may ? They are nearly al- 
ways the artificial and enervating life of great cities. 
Nature is far away, beyond the pavements, the chim- 
neys, and the walls. It is impossible, with the best in- 
tentions in the world, that physical health should not 
suffer. Every one knows that a great city devours young 
children. It consumes a frightful total of lives and 
energies, and, left to itself, would soon become depop- 
ulated. Nothing could be worse for youth from the 
point of view of hygiene. Everything is sedentary, 
pleasure and study alike, and everything is carried to 
excess. The double load of unwholesome amusements 
and undue study quickly affects the most robust health. 



HEALTH AND AMUSEMENTS. 103 

Indoor life, late hours, bad air, all the accessories of a 
somnambulistic life, subject the physique to a strain, and 
sooner or later have to be paid for. But the saddest re- 
sult of this artificial life, ruinous alike to the brain and 
the nervous system, has been the almost total suppres- 
sion of the only thing capable of restoring the lost 
equilibrium, — physical exercise and manual labour. 
For years these two have been more and more neglected. 
A sort of foolish contempt for them exists. Physical 
exercise, in the shape of some excellent sports, has be- 
gun to find favour these latter days. Manual labour, 
especially the tillage of the soil, — the most healthful and 
the most normal of all, — has always been out of favour. 
Youth has reaped to-day what its predecessors sowed. 
Each new generation shows more striking signs of weak- 
ness. Already many are calling attention to the dan- 
ger, and they begin to be listened to. But it is hard to 
recover lost ground. How fight at one and the same 
time against hereditary tastes and the difficulties of the 
situation ? The evil is evident, the remedy less so. In 
short, our whole youth suffers the results of an artifi- 
cial and abnormal life. 

It is even easy now to find young men who have a 
distressing impression of life, and who cling to it 
only indifferently, though at the same time they do not 
wish to undergo suffering or to die. I am not speaking 
of those blast youths who have exhausted the entire 
round of pleasures, as others have that of the emotions 
and the intellect, and who have become sceptical as to 
pleasure as these to philosophy. I am speaking of 
those sensitive and morbid souls for whom even 



104 YOUTH. 

the daily round of our nervous life has become painful, 
and resembles its normal state no more than the deep 
full note of a fine bell resembles the irritating jingling 
of an electric annunciator. In such a state cheer- 
fulness and mirth, those sacred treasures of youth, are 
but a cause of suffering. It reaches insensibly a point 
where it cannot be amused. The cause of this is 
largely the class of pleasures we select. Nearly all our 
amusements stimulate the nerves instead of quieting 
them. Amusement is excitement. This forced pleasure 
is artificial and very exhausting. Instead of leading 
you to taste the good things of life, and that sweet in- 
toxication which makes healthful and vigorous youth 
hear " the welkin ring and the stars sing together," it 
disposes you rather by forced reaction to perceive the 
bitter dregs at the bottom of the cup. Oh ! I know 
perfectly that here and there real pleasures still exist, 
and I rejoice at it. Pleasures will always exist while 
there are sunshine, flowers, and fresh-hearted young 
companions. But on the whole they have diminished, 
and my ears ring with the cry, " We don't know how 
to amuse ourselves.' ' 

It is high time that these symptoms be considered 
seriously. In my opinion, health and amusement are as 
necessary parts of cultivation in life as any branch of 
knowledge, no matter what it is. But I will return to 
this subject. 

Alas ! how shall we refrain from thinking that with 
many the evil is incurable? Let me at least drop a 
sympathetic tear over the many poor lost young lives, 
victims of psychological anomalies, faded before their 



HEALTH AND AMUSEMENTS. 105 

time, and over that youth destined to fall from the tree 
of life like unsound fruit. Melancholy harvest from so 
many seeds of errors and vices ! They are to be pitied. 
They pay a debt which they never contracted. They 
may be called the century's children of sorrow. But 
woe to us, if the pity which they inspire does not 
awaken in our hearts a hatred for all that has caused 
their martyrdom ! 



106 YOUTH. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE YOUTH OF THE PEOPLE. 

T^HE life of the people is one of the good things of 
A which we know nothing. What appears on the 
surface is a small or poor indication of what goes on 
within. Nevertheless, this life should be widely studied 
because of the good there is in it, and because of the 
evils from which it suffers. Each of these is reflected 
in its youth. Its lot in life is essentially different from 
that of studious youth. It has neither the leisure nor 
the culture necessary to inform itself of the world of 
ideas and theories. The struggle for bread, the hard ex- 
actions of labour constantly distract it, and do not per- 
mit of indulgence or self-examination. Analysis of 
ideas and impressions is a thing unknown. After a few 
short years at a primary school, the workshop, the fac- 
tory, the office, or the fields, and above all, the example 
of those above it, and the cheap press are its school. 

Notwithstanding the tender age at which the children 
of the people enter school, and the short time they at- 
tend, its influence cannot be over-estimated. Its com- 
prehensiveness and the number of people to whom it 
appeals make it a great power. The attention we have 
bestowed on our public schools will be one of our 
merits in the eyes of posterity. The primary school is 



THE YOUTH OF THE PEOPLE. 107 

par excellence the instrument of national education. 
I expect to return to this subject later on. For the 
moment I will mention it only as one of those factors 
which influence the youth of the people and its ideas. 
Every one knows how lasting are the impressions of in- 
fancy. They are still more lasting among the people 
than among the cultivated class, where reading, succes- 
sive schools, and various influences interfere with and 
sometimes efface them. 

The churches are another factor. A goodly number 
of youth, it is true, escape this influence, especially in 
the great centres ; but it incontestably affects a multi- 
tude. How long will it last? To what degree it is 
trammelled by indifference and suppressed by antipathy, 
it is difficult to say exactly. But though the mass of 
the people do not escape contact with religion, it is not 
necessarily religious. It is infinitely less so than here- 
tofore. The increased observance of certain outward 
forms, encouraged and abetted with a purpose often 
foreign to religion, should not deceive us on this point. 
The people have conceived a distrust of religion. Its 
supernatural character removes it from their sphere, 
and to it they attribute certain reservations on social 
and political subjects. Consciously or unconsciously, 
many ask themselves if the church is not on the side of 
the powers of the earth and the prosperous middle 
class against the weak. That the would-be movement 
for reform should have begun in contemporaneous 
society with the aristocracy, and thence passed to the 
middle classes in its attempts to reach the people, is a 
strong indication of this. 



108 YOUTH. 

Whatever it may be, the practical orientation of the 
youth of the people begins too soon. It is made dur- 
ing those years of apprenticeship which are the schools 
of the masses. The difference in occupations is very 
great. To be in the workshop is quite another thing 
from being a clerk or a farm labourer. 

The years of apprenticeship of a young mechanic 
are very hard. What is a child of that age, to be given 
over by himself to that formidable combination of men 
and machinery which our great industries are ? He is 
so small, so weak ; and the forces, the personal influ- 
ences, the material interests about him are so great. In 
that mighty workroom where the looms whir with 
such deafening noise, where the most careful attention 
is necessary to avoid accidents, and where every faculty 
is concentrated on the execution of three or four 
movements, the child insensibly feels himself a wheel 
among wheels. He turns into a machine, because 
the machine cannot become human. And when he 
sees that great engine which turns the shaft and the 
belting that make the looms move under his eyes, — 
that precious engine shut up in a house of its own, 
watched over and cared for, and terrible above all for 
its strength and its risks, — how small does the child 
feel beside this fire-devouring monster of iron that often 
grinds to pieces those who feed it ! 

How poorly cared for he feels beside these glistening 
machines which lack nothing and which cost so dear ! 
What is he in comparison with them and the wealth 
whose instrument they are ? 

Then there are the encounters with those in authority, 



THE YOUTH OF THE PEOPLE. 109 

the brusque elbowings-aside, the curt orders, the coarse 
talk, full of all kinds of good and evil, the concise and 
pitiless insight into men and things, — all of which 
puzzle young heads, and make an agglomeration so dif- 
ficult for them to judge aright. The nature of our 
modern industry, its development, its colossal factories 
and foundries, its great stock companies, the gradual 
drawing apart of master and man who were often co- 
labourers, — all this renders the position of the youth of 
the workshops as difficult as it is interesting. 

Youth in clerical positions has a much easier life. It 
also belongs to the people, and from the nature of its 
duties pertains to that ever-increasing class of interme- 
diaries between an idea and its material execution, be- 
tween capital and labour, and between the master and 
the man, which our form of society has made neces- 
sary. Like all intermediaries they share the qualities 
and shortcomings of those above and below them. The 
most serious hardship of these young employes is their 
sedentary life, — which is almost that of a cell bounded 
by a chair and the corner of a table, — and the confining 
nature of their work. Their duties are so subdivided 
that each has only some one subdivision, and works in a 
round like a horse in a riding-school. This destroys 
the mind. The effect on the body is equally bad. 

In these two respects the agriculturist fares better. 
His work changes with the seasons, he is in touch with 
Nature ; and although occupied with manual labour, he 
must think more, because of what is ever before his 
eyes, and because his changing occupations demand it. 
Thus, though artistic work has nearly all disappeared 



110 YOUTH. 

from manufactures under the terrible pressure of eco- 
nomic competition, and the most capable artists have 
been reduced, little by little, to machines, the young 
agriculturist is still in his normal condition. His is no 
cramped life ; he lays his hand on the whole grand work 
of creation, — nay, more, he is surrounded by things 
beyond the calculation and foresight of man. Fast 
though he, too, may be in the meshes of the economic 
net, he does not see everywhere those fatal figures which 
are such a wretched standard of man and his works. 
His field has a money value, no doubt, but it is worth 
far more than that to him. He has the pleasure of see- 
ing the crops grow and ripen, he has the memory of 
his father who tilled and cared for the same fields, and, 
in short, a multitude of associations such as give value 
to the veriest trifles. He is not lost in the crowd, he is 
somebody, — not a mere number, like the young appren- 
tices in great factories; or even like young clerks. On 
the other hand, he feels from afar the increasing influ- 
ence, the fascination of the great city. Here is his dan- 
ger, for he risks losing that which is his mainstay, — 
the love for the soil, that deep and powerful sentiment, 
the source of energy and virtue. 

This is the place to present certain general considera- 
tions on the intellectual and moral outfit of the youth 
of the people, and on its conception of life such as it 
appears to us in the present generation. 

The lower classes, no matter where they are studied, 
are profoundly affected by the current realism. The 
two or three fundamental beliefs which have consti- 
tuted for them during centuries the very basis of religion 



THE YOUTH OF THE PEOPLE. Ill 

and morality are shaken in some, destroyed in others. 
God, the soul, the hereafter, human liberty and respon- 
sibility, — those who have retained belief in these retain 
it greatly weakened. From the number who cling to 
them and prove it by outward observance, if we deduct 
those whom routine or interest influences, the contingent 
of believers that remains is small indeed. A greater ma- 
terial welfare has resulted to the people from the great 
scientific movement of the day, but with it have come 
greater needs, and the conviction that only what one 
can see or touch can be depended on. As a rule, youth 
between seventeen and twenty-five is distinguished by a 
development of the appetites and a decrease of the 
aspirations. It is a sad thing to say ; but the better ac- 
quaintance I have made with this particular world, the 
more am I convinced of the immense void which has 
formed little by little in the soul of the people. There 
are days when what one hears and sees almost leads to 
the conclusion that there is no longer any belief. A 
half-dozen negative formulas, the condensed results 
of accumulated negations, make up the category of 
mystery and the infinite. The system of morality is in 
keeping with this philosophy ; it is utilitarian in theory. 
How could it be otherwise ? Do those who give the 
tone to society show any other than this in their acts ? 
Have not the people daily under their eves the sight of 
that morality of success which so disgraces us ? Does it 
not see men and enterprises which are successful ab- 
solved from responsibility, even by those who make 
profession of morality and religion ? As if that which 
triumphed were always good, and that which failed were 



112 YOUTH. 

bad. Has it not evidence every time it opens its eyes that 
money dishonestly obtained, when there is plenty of it, 
is more honoured than honest money when there is 
little ? That alone would be enough to make it conceive 
doubts of the religion and morality which is taught it. 
It drops your good advice and your principles, and bor- 
rows your vices. It is tempted to consider the first as 
an invention by clever people for the use of the simple- 
minded. The morality which counts is that which is 
practised, not that which is taught. The people are on 
the watch, and great breaches are made in their con- 
science whenever they on whom their eyes are fixed 
show by their acts that at bottom they are without princi- 
ples. For, make no mistake, there are always the leading 
classes. Much has been said in our day of their disap- 
pearance. It is claimed that they have died out for lack 
of successors ; that they lost their influence through their 
own fault, or through pressure from the spirit of equal- 
ity. There is truth in all this. But it is also true that 
that which gave the old leading classes their dangerous 
prerogative — namely, moral ascendancy and the power 
of example — can never die. Its watchword is one of 
those urgent social needs that always exist, and comes 
necessarily from the lettered and opulent few. They 
who are prominent because of learning or fortune are 
looked up to. The popular mind differs from that of 
the educated classes, in that it holds more strongly to 
men than to ideas, to deeds and facts than to senti- 
ments. Shades of meaning and distinctions escape it. 
It is hard to gain its attention, but once gained it is in 
earnest. It informs itself, then, en bloc, and pronounces 



THE YOUTH OF THE PEOPLE. 113 

summary judgments which it cannot be persuaded to 
change. 

This state of things can be more easily noticed in the 
youth of the people than elsewhere. Yet despite all 
this, the utilitarianism of which we have spoken is not 
at ease in its surroundings. This system of morality is 
contradicted every day in the lives of those who pro- 
fess it. Among the people, more than elsewhere, under 
the imperious demands of existence, the weight of suf- 
fering or of common trouble, humanity awakes and 
performs unceasing and touching acts of solidarity and 
friendship. Unhappily they appear little on the sur- 
face. To find them we must lead the life of the people. 
The evil, on the contrary, is in plain sight. 

I note, especially, in the world of this youth two 
things from which conclusions may properly be drawn ; 
namely, their treatment of their parents when old, and 
their treatment of women. I regret to say that exam- 
ples of cynicism in acts and words, of depravity of 
manners, and of contempt for women abound. Disre- 
spect and ingratitude to parents, even when poverty does 
not mitigate the offence, are so common that at certain 
moments of depression one might declare that there was 
a complete moral decay. And here we may note to- 
ward both women and parents a lessening of respect 
everywhere. 

A man's respect increases or decreases with his con- 
ception of his own dignity. The more a man is worth 
in his own eyes, the more willingly does he respect 
men or institutions which personify human nature 
and society. When he has lost faith in his higher 

8 



1 14 YOUTH. 

self, in his worth as a moral being, — in his soul, in 
short, — he loses the basis of respect. Nothing appears 
worthy of reverence. His view of the whole world 
is distorted by this mental lack. We are here face to 
face with a serious fact. Some accuse the modern 
spirit of having destroyed reverence by its equalizing 
tendencies. Let us look into it, because it is worth 
while to be sure of a thing. 

No age has done more to destroy the pomp of state 
and custom, no age has gone so relentlessly to the 
bottom of glittering nullities. It has not been willing 
to accord respect except with full foreknowledge. 
Whoever is touched by the modern spirit, be he em- 
peror or pope (and Heaven be praised, such things have 
happened !), seems at bottom convinced of this, — that 
nothing is great unless it is true. Men in heredi- 
tary positions of great power seek rather to commend 
themselves by justice, by care for the weak, by all that 
suggests that they are men like ourselves, than by any 
assertion of absolute authority. They claim to be the 
servants of the people rather than their masters. An- 
other has worn this title before them. That other was 
Christ. It is, in truth, from him that this new concep- 
tion of authority springs. What harm is there in this ? 
Is respect thereby diminished ? I declare, on the con- 
trary, that a spirit such as this is the grandest, the most 
august in the world, since it teaches us to fear nothing 
and to respect nothing above that holy and immortal 
law which governs all ; and to find greatness in our own 
souls, and in that helpful disposition which makes the 
highest, out of respect for life, become the lowliest 



THE YOUTH OF THE PEOPLE. 115 

servitor. But this spirit, like all other good things, has 
its caricature ; and that caricature is the spirit of depre- 
ciation. This does not consist in according respect only 
where it is due, and in proclaiming that only as great 
which is true ; it consists in respecting nothing at all. 
Above all, it delights in vilifying and dragging in the 
mud all that is venerable and holy. It is not worth its 
while to unmask borrowed greatness and to search for 
truth in order to reverence it, — no, all greatness and 
all superiority irritate it. It is, in its very essence, sub- 
versive, irreligious, and worldly. It has transformed 
man's lack of fear and his contempt for artificial great- 
ness, that noble trait of fine souls, into lack of piety, 
that characteristic of knaves. 

The modern spirit leads to freedom ; this other to the 
worst slavery. The man who respects nothing falls 
into the grasp of constraint and brute force. 

Whence comes this lack of respect which afflicts our 
youth so sorely ? It comes from the pernicious ex- 
amples set by those in high places. It comes from cor- 
rupt instructors, — those professors of nothingness and 
earth, great and small, whose doctrines have filtered 
through thousands of crevices into the hearts of the 
masses. It comes from the retailers of scandals and 
calumniators by profession, who are urgent to discover 
a thief, an assassin, or at least a hypocrite in every man 
who is prominent from his position or his talent. There 
is a work more dangerous than to demolish the princi- 
ples of the people, or to cast ridicule on holy and vener- 
able things, or to sully its imagination with impure 
literature, — it is to destroy its belief in honesty, in 



116 YOUTH. 

disinterestedness, in all virtue; and in this respect an 
enormous amount of disintegration has been accom- 
plished. Personal influence has been increased to im- 
measurable proportions by the propaganda of the cheap 
press. There is no need of reading a bad book, or of 
being told of things in detail. An article in the news- 
paper, a line in a serial, a wretched caricature is enough 
to awaken a train of ideas, and to open the door into 
a world. There are certain low tendencies in human 
nature which welcome evil suggestions. They can al- 
ways be counted on, when one wishes to corrupt and 
to coin money at the same time. 

But this is not all. When reverence takes flight, con- 
fidence disappears also. The people to-day, and the 
youth of the people, distrust every one and everything, 
even those chance educators who have perverted their 
minds. There was a time not far back, when all that 
was printed, whether placard, proclamation, or news- 
paper, was read and believed in as gospel. We all feel 
the need of relying on something, and those who have 
the least light crave it more than others. Through this, 
which is in truth only one of the forms of faith in hu- 
manity and truth, and one of the evidences of rectitude, 
a vast measure of good can be accomplished. But con- 
fidence is killed by abuse. The people have been so 
often deceived that, for a large number, words and print 
have no value. This is scepticism, and in one of its 
worst forms. Youth has inherited this scepticism. The 
precious link between those who ought to teach and 
direct and those who have need to be taught is thus 
broken ; and the great majority of youth, left to itself, 



THE YOUTH OF THE PEOPLE. 117 

lives on without belief, principles, or confidence in man 

to guide it. 

One of the consequences of this state of mind is a 
lack of cohesion, which shows itself in the direction of 
their most serious interests. It would, for instance, 
have been natural to see the youth of the people inter- 
ested, as one man, in social questions. What we do see is 
rather the opposite of this. The majority do not inter- 
est themselves at all. A minority only is enthusiastic ; 
but it is rare for even them to rise above questions of 
part}- or of material interest. There are but a chosen 
few who understand that discipline, esprit de corps, and 
sacrifice are the indispensable moral bases of all progress, 
even though economic. The social education of the 
youth of the people is in its rudimentary stage. Our 
educated youth can do yeoman service here, if the heart 
and the disposition are not lacking. 

The great dark cloud on the horizon is alcoholism. 
Doubtless its influence is felt in all classes of society ; 
but it is, above all, the scourge of the people. It is a 
scourge of recent date, one that has appeared in the 
last thirty or forty years. Alcoholism is the very latest 
parvenu and a cosmopolite. It can be assigned no 
native land. It has become acclimated a little every- 
where. Since, through heredity, it has entered the 
blood and marrow of the people, and has spread alike 
in country and city, it has alarmed first physicians and 
lawyers, and little by little all thinkers. The race is 
stricken in a vital spot. Hospitals, insane asylums, and 
prisons give daily evidence of its progress. In some 



118 YOUTH. 

countries it is easier to count those who are not than 
those who are addicted to it. Add to this that what 
is now drunk is radically different from what was drunk 
in old times. It is not in the domain of ideas only, that 
our age has discovered fraud. Its material as well as 
its intellectual and moral sustenance is poisoned. Its 
favourite drink is a cheap mixture, adulterated with 
spirits made from beet root and potatoes, with which 
the great manufactories inundate the world. It can be 
said with truth that it drinks its death and that of 
its children. The future is poisoned, and coming gen- 
erations are doomed to blight, insanity, and crime. 
The consequences of alcoholism — economic, hygienic, 
moral, political, and social — can never be calculated. 
Of nine tenths of the ruin, disease, accidents, crime, 
fanaticism, and popular disturbances, we can truly ex- 
claim : The cause is alcohol. 

Alcoholism ravages the youth of the people to a 
frightful extent. There is hardly a form of amusement 
without it. It disturbs and destroys healthful pleasures ; 
it prevents physical culture ; it neutralizes the effects of 
social meetings where good-fellowship and relaxation 
are sought. Every meeting, every excursion, no matter 
what its object, runs the risk of ending in a drinking- 
bout. Manners become coarse, and talk and songs 
brutal. 

Formerly the city relied on the influx of new blood 
from the fields and mountains to recruit its strength. 
These reserves are themselves affected. There are in 
the Vosges, to cite one example only, secluded valleys 
where the springs flow ever, where the air is pure, and 



THE YOUTH OF THE PEOPLE. 119 

[where the memory of man cannot recall an epidemic. 
J But alcoholism reigns. The number of feeble babies is 
constantly on the increase. There is demoralization in 
habits, in the pocket, and in the household. The fruit 
1 of a life of labour disappears in smoke. Alcohol is 
more terrible than the plague, than war, or any scourge 
of Nature. Outward losses may be made good, and 
even decay in the world of ideas ; but how shall we 
remedy an evil which devours blood, brains, and 
nerves, and destroys even the basis of life ? 

Sometimes, in reviewing - our civilization, the question 
is asked, Whit can menace it ? It cannot go down be- 
fore an invasion of barbarians like that of antiquity. 
Its enemies, nevertheless, are not far to seek. They do 
not swarm on the distant horizon like the Huns and 
Vandals ; they are in its midst, and alcohol is one of 
the most terrible. 

What hope can there be for the future in a youth 
given over to alcohol ? A democracy rests on the good 
sense of the people, on the wisdom and energy of its 
citizens, on the spirit of order, of work, of economv. 
For all these good things one can tremble as long as 
absinthe and brandy gain ground. They are the bar- 
barians in our midst 

You will say, by this time, that I began so sombre a 
chapter wrongly, in saying that the life of the people 
was one of those ..< we know little about, I 

intend to prove my assertion. The of which I 

have spoken are the warts, the excre lie diseas* s 

which disfigure and prey on their life. Yes, 



120 YOUTH. 

unhappily true that in our healthy and robust people 
there has been a deterioration. The most thoughtful 
notice it, and speak of it about the family table, or tell 
you of it in confidence when conversation falls on seri- 
ous subjects. But, despite all, the life of the people 
remains the great source of energy, of courage, of 
the spirit of sacrifice, whence society unceasingly renews 
its strength. The people is saved from nothingness 
by its hard life, its labour, and even its suffering. Its 
practical life nourishes its good sense. When we take 
the trouble to look at it near at hand, we see daily ex- 
amples of wonderful patience and strength. The wo- 
men, in especial, are admirable. Some carry super- 
human burdens with a simple courage which would 
shame men most hardened to suffering. Some mothers, 
besides their household duties, do other work, always 
poorly paid, and have no respite the whole year long 
outside of a little sleep. Almost never is there any 
recreation. An outing, however small, is an event. 
When sickness or a husband's crime comes to compli- 
cate matters, one can fancy what their life is. What, 
indeed, are the burdens of those in easy circumstances 
compared with theirs ! What a life ! Compare the 
frivolous habits, the morale, superficial and careless, of 
idlers, and of those light-minded triflers who consider 
life an idle stroll. Compare, even, the staid and self- 
satisfied life of the well-to-do bourgeois. What a 
judgment does this comparison pronounce ! There are 
ways of living and thinking which melt away like 
butter in the sun at contact with the people's life of 
stern reality. Such a life is a perpetual and elevating 



THE YOUTH OF THE PEOPLE. 121 

lesson for the young. Whether they will or no, they 
who have any heart are touched. 

And it is precisely because the life of the people con- 
tains these precious elements that we must preserve and 
protect it. Let us not forget that it is a treasure. To 
come in contact with it is one of the best ways of fight- 
ing against that artificial world which clutches and 
slays us. We must fraternize with the youth of the 
people for their good and for ours. 



122 YOUTH. 



CHAPTER IX. 

YOUTH AND REACTION. 

IN view of the real difficulties which we encounter in 
the affairs of the mind, and which the analogous 
phenomena in the manifold departments of practical 
life render still more difficult, they who disparage the 
modern spirit cry shipwreck, and counsel reaction. 
For the modern spirit has furious detractors, who con- 
sider the existing crisis as a condemnation of a whole 
sequence of centuries. They arraign, at one and the 
same time, science, civil and religious liberty, and all 
the independent movements of humanity, whether theo- 
retical or in practice, and hope for salvation only in a 
return, pure and simple, to the past. The men who 
share this point of view gather around them a body of 
youth, and, with great energy and a devotion which in 
some is admirable, try to detach it from the present and 
its aspirations, and imbue it with the spirit of the past 
which they would revive. It is a titanic enterprise when 
one considers the amount of effort necessary and the 
extent of their scheme ; for this is what it proposes to 
do, — to consider all modern development, such as has 
come from the Renaissance, from the Reformation, 
from the Revolution, and from science, as a colossal 



YOUTH AND REACTION. 123 

error ; to efface this error of history, and lead back so- 
ciety to the status quo ante. 

Nothing relating to man should lack interest to us. 
A reaction, therefore, is often legitimate and useful, 
provided that it be kept within limits which are not out- 
side the general good. I declare, then, that 1 have no 
preconceived antipathy against the movement of which 
I speak. There is no monopoly of good in any one 
tendency of the mind ; it is distributed somewhat 
everywhere. In general, that which has no reason for 
existence dies. When many minds, among them those 
of men of great moral worth, agree in taking a certain 
direction, then, in the conditions under which they live, 
there must be profound motives to determine this agree- 
ment. That others join the enterprise with mental 
reservations as to government or material interests, 
should not hinder us from recognizing the sincerity of 
the prime movers. He who would seek the truth must 
be just. I find it natural, then, that at critical epochs 
characterized by unceasing restlessness, we should be 
haunted by that grand past where humanity seemed to 
have found its utterance, which it has handed down as 
a sacred thing to all its children, and where thought, 
like life, seemed to assume of itself forms as stable as if 
moulded in brass. So much solidity and peaceful se- 
curity tempt generations like ours, which are fighting 
with every wind and every wave. I can conceive moral 
lassitudes which throw the wearied thinker into the 
arms of an unchangeable dogma ; 1 can conceive still 
more the regrets and indignation which seize believers 
attached to the holy traditions, the hopes, the consola- 



124 YOUTH. 

tions, the worship which make up religion, when they 
see these things treated as old rubbish, and trampled 
under the feet of ignorance and irreligion. And these 
regrets I shall entertain still, in face of the negations, re- 
spectful though they be, of a materialistic science. At 
bottom there are grand treasures to defend and protect ; 
not to recognize them is deliberately to ignore facts, 
humanity and all its interests. 

The chief thing is to know whether the undertaking 
does not overreach its object, and exceed the power 
of man. 

For my part I believe that it does overreach its ob- 
ject, and consequently injures itself, by denying progress 
and the good that has come from the spirit of tolerance, 
of justice, and of knowledge of the modern spirit ; and 
that it commits a great injustice in confounding that 
spirit with atheism, realism, and disorder. 

On the other hand, I am persuaded that no human 
power, individual or collective, can resuscitate the past 
as it was. 

It is with great apprehensions for itself and the future 
of the ideas which are dear to it that I see a large body 
of youth enrolled in a work which would consist of 
suppressing four centuries of human life, and substi- 
tuting for them a state of things that has disappeared. 
In the first place it would be necessary to disassociate 
ourselves from the age we wish to efface. Its blood 
flows in our veins, its evils are ours, we profit by what 
is good in it. It is through it that we are connected 
with the past by the thread of inheritance. We are not 
the children of our grandsires' grandsires. Between 



YOUTH AND REACTION. 125 

them and us there are intermediate generations, of 
which we bear the trace in every fibre of our body and 
in every shade of our thought. To be a man of the 
past is as impossible as to be the son of one's great- 
grandfather. It is difficult for us to put ourselves, ever 
so little, in the place of these ancestors in order to 
understand and appreciate them. We have other 
standards of judgment, other methods of observation, 
and other inherited mental traits. Our world is in 
many respects a different one from theirs. But to bring 
back their life now, and to enter into the framework of 
habits, thought, and fancy which surrounded them, 
would be equivalent to reconstructing from its remains 
some lost fauna, so that it should live and flourish 
among us. The more I think of it, the more it seems 
to me that to live in the fourteenth century would be 
as difficult to one of our age as to live in the twenty- 
second. 

We are, therefore, face to face with a total of very 
complex problems, the solution of the smallest of which 
would demand superhuman powers. But there is, 
above all, a very grave psychological problem closely 
connected with the genesis of convictions and belief. 
When one says to youth, " The world has gone astray 
for many centuries ; we must retrace our steps ; let us 
return to the bosom of the Church, the only depository 
of truth, of spiritual authority, and therefore of tem- 
poral power/' see what they demand, — an effort of the 
will to admit en bloc the whole of Saint Thomas Aquinas. 
It is perhaps difficult, they say ; but what would you 
have : we are so ill, and this alone can cure us. 



126 YOUTH. 

Let us suppose that we have decided to follow their 
advice. We make an effort of the will to believe 
en bloc ; we swallow down the remedy, notwithstand- 
ing our repugnance. Is that enough ? No. This be- 
lief which we have adopted is inert. No freedom from 
doubt, no life can spring from it. It will act no more 
than a medicine which remains in the stomach just as 
when taken, without being assimilated and digested. If, 
then, this ensemble of doctrines which is offered for our 
adoption is to be of use, it is not sufficient to swallow it, 
it must be assimilated. In entering an intellectual and 
moral organism like ours, the past must undergo a 
complete digestion. Our thought will treat it after its 
own fashion and its accustomed laws ; it will submit it 
to the test of experience, to examination ; it will de- 
mand of it, in short, that it justify itself. Oh, we are 
far from demanding a demonstrable belief. Such an 
idea cannot occur to any one who possesses the slightest 
appreciation of mystery and the infinite. As well de- 
mand a pocket mountain or a portable ocean ! But if 
the realities of belief are not those which the intellect 
measures, weighs, and adjusts, like arithmetical quanti- 
ties, he at least who holds them must be in harmony 
with them. Belief is not like money which one drops 
into his purse. To be ours it must be born in the 
heart of our existence and our conscience, and trans- 
form itself into a personal conviction. Otherwise it lies 
in the mind like a foreign substance. 

It is not enough to say : " Everything is going to 
rack and ruin. If we could only believe, hope, and 
worship as our fathers did, all would go well. Let us, 



YOUTH AND REACTION. 127 

then, reassume their beliefs." What is necessary is to 
be convinced as they were ; and to be convinced, it is 
necessary that our soul and our conscience should have 
thoroughly approved our motives, — that truth should 
have found in us a resting-place. In a word, belief by 
the will is a snare. One does not believe because he 
wills to do it, but because he cannot help himself. Be- 
lief by the will rests entirely on man's effort, as the 
world of ancient mythology rested on the shoulders of 
Atlas. This is not the belief which saves and vivifies, 
and to which we wish to give ourselves. That can be 
only the result of experience. 

Let us suppose a man absolutely sincere, and con- 
vinced that the world is lost if it does not return to 
the thought and rules of conduct comprised in the nar- 
row compass of traditional authority, but who has in- 
wardly cut loose from the old belief. Let us suppose 
that, convinced of the practical utility of a belief which 
he respects but which he can no longer assimilate, he 
adopts this belief outwardly, suffers in its defence, and 
ends by dying for it, in the hope that his sacrifice will 
at least make others believe what he could not himself, 
except mechanically. What purpose do the labours of 
this martyr serve ? We can believe in goodness, in the 
triumph of love, in the things holy and humane which 
have made a good man meet death, — we can believe, 
perhaps, in the martyr himself, though not in his prin- 
ciples. For these to be shared, they must be a part of 
our life. Fire alone sets on fire. 

Herein is the secret of the weakness of many of the 
advocates of the past. 



128 YOUTH. 

The reaction which would replace the modern spirit 
outsteps its authority too far, when it speaks in the 
name of the past. It does not represent all the past, — 
neither all the past of religion, nor all the past of Chris- 
tianity. Its champions represent certain stages of that 
past formulated into rules of life, and certain forms of 
religious thought formulated into doctrines. But there 
have been developed in the vast regions of religious 
life flowers of a richness unheard of, which the Church 
has never cultivated. In its own garden trees have 
grown which it has tried to uproot, and others which 
it has first mutilated, but whose fruits it -has afterward 
borrowed. Ought humanity to deprive itself of all the 
good not produced in one particular period of the past ? 
And the evil which this past has done, — must it be 
forgotten and submitted to anew ? 

If the question presented itself thus: On the one 
hand scientific materialism, scepticism, the sum total 
of negations which strip humanity of its nobility, 
disorder, and unbelief, and on the other side all belief, 
all hope, and all the virtues, — it would be different. We 
should not hesitate a minute. These practical results 
would be in themselves alone the most irrefutable proofs 
of the truth of tradition. But the question cannot be 
so stated. If we were so to state it, we should do 
wrong. We should be lacking in respect for the youth 
we are bringing up, who take us at our word. In not 
recognizing the good which others have done, we should 
fail in respect for the truth. In short, in order to raise 
humanity, we should belittle it, and as a consequence 
ourselves. 



YOUTH AND REACTION. 129 

More modesty and impartiality would make the 
champions of the past infinitely stronger. Why do 
they not learn from that past which is their hereditary 
fief, a grand and salutary lesson ? 

Its world, to-day crystallized and mummified, has 
been the most active, the most full of variety, the most 
susceptible of adaptation, of which history has preserved 
an example. It has known how to place itself on the 
highest level of antique culture, and to descend to the 
lowest and most ignorant. It has known Greeks and 
Barbarians alike. It was at ease in power and in slavery, 
in opulence and in misery. It has spoken all tongues, 
has travelled all roads, and its heart has throbbed for all 
that makes man's heart throb. And what a life, what 
popularity, what social power it has had ! It began to 
lose a part of its influence only when it became wrapped 
in egoism, routine, and immobility. In proportion as 
it withdrew from the grand life of nations, has life died 
out in it. There is thus one hope only for you who 
admire and sincerely love this grand past: it is to 
imitate what was best and most humanizing in it. It is 
necessary for you to be broadened, to be transformed, 
to practise self-denial on a large scale, to cease to be 
behind the age of ideas, — even religious ideas, —and 
to go forward resolutely hand in hand with whoever 
loves and prays for man on earth. 

All this is said on the supposition that the reaction is 
serious and honest. But there is a reaction which it is 
impossible for us to consider as serious. It is a kind of 
religious dilettanteism which has made certain youthful 

9 



130 YOUTH. 

minds take delight in all sorts of old symbols, without 
increase of belief on that account, and above all with- 
out any idea of making of their religiosity a means of 
sanctification and of pure living. They seek in religion 
aesthetic and archaeological enjoyment. They hang in 
their rooms old chasubles, statuettes of the saints ; they 
play at a monastic life, and saturate themselves with the 
perfume of incense, the murmur of prayers, sacred 
music, and the soft and peaceful light which falls 
through cathedral windows ; and believe that they pay 
great respect to the clergy in saying to them that they 
possess the Gospels and books of the hours bound in 
very old parchment, that they carry crucifixes hidden in 
their breast, and dip their fingers in holy water. They call 
this a reaction, rolling up their eyes sanctimoniously. 
This a reaction ! Let us not play with words, and 
above all with holy things. To eat from a bishop's 
dish, or to drink wine from a chalice, does not entitle 
a man to call himself a Christian. Such religion is 
like that old furniture, heavy and severe, in which our 
age, by a singular contrast, loves often to surround as 
with a setting its frivolous habits and its idle conversa- 
tion. It is a bibelot ; that is all. My opinion is that one 
does it more honour by combating it than by render- 
ing it such bizarre homage. 

What shall we say of another kind of reaction, — that 
which is only a political manoeuvre, under the cloak of 
morality and religion ? It must be stigmatized as the 
worst of profanations and the latest hypocrisy. As all 
sincere conviction and even all compulsory belief is 



YOUTH AND REACT: 

sympathetic I : us, so this impious speculation 

things tills us with horror. F: 
servant, a slave liable to the worst treatment 
thing could make us despise it. it would certainlj be 
this dishonouring' connection with politic 
knavery. A youth which was brought up in this at- 
mosphere could not be otherwise at botl ..-:- 
tical. Belief can be worthy of respect only . is 
disinterested, compassionate, and when he who professes 
it is ready on its behalf for all sacrifices. The .:.. 
an ambitious man uses it to push himself in the 
or a common man to gain his bread, it is n >ng e be - 
lief; it is something which has no name, but hich is 
more sad and more frightful than nothingness. 

$ * 
There remains to us the exposition of a reaction 
purely political, without reservation side ;: reli- 

gion or philosophy; a son of restc 
power, a rule of the sabre and the cross, 
keep the appetites in check, and e: certain yoi 

ranters whom democratic principles irritate 
ditm metiunt, they exclaim, quoting a celebrated phi 
which he whom it is the custo: 
tie of force put in execution for more than I 

I do not believe in the 
this kind, either in France or el- n- 

dition of a stron :ism is that it belie- i 

It must, without stumbling or blinking, g 
ver wills and ha 
ss. The secret 
our day is that they have lost faith in themselves. The 



132 YOUTH. 

modern spirit has affected them in spite of themselves. 
It has shaken also the heart of the masses. Deprived 
thus of its double support, — discredited with those 
who employ it, and with those whom it ought to sub- 
due, — force loses ground daily. This great despiser of 
immaterial realities depends, after all, on conditions of 
the mind. And these conditions no one can modify at 
will, because they are not the result of arbitrary effort, 
but of necessity. Every one must thoroughly realize 
that despotic power has been dethroned in the world 
since it has been dethroned in the human soul. The great 
thing which is being accomplished in different degrees 
in the heart of civilized society, no matter what its form 
of government, and which neither the regrets of some 
nor the excesses of others can arrest, is the evolution of 
temporal power, which is based on coercion, into spir- 
itual power, which is moral authority, and is based on 
respect and conviction. All social functions, low or 
high, from that of the parent to the highest office of 
government, are undergoing a slow transformation. An 
office no longer honours the man ; the man must hon- 
our the office. Can we turn back from this evolution 
of public spirit, which does not consist of changeable 
surface phenomena, but touches the very essence of 
things, and makes itself felt in all departments ? To ad- 
mit such a thing would be to have no conception of 
the force of ideas. It would be more easy to seize a 
mountain by its base and hold it at arms' length, than 
to change an idea grounded on conscience and the good 
sense of humanity, and built up grain by grain by the 
long labours of experience. 



VOUTH AND REACTION. [)) 

We conclude, then, that salvation will not come 

through a reaction against the modern spirit. Instead 
of trying- to arouse a noble band of youth to isolate it-, 
self from the world in behalf of special interests, and 
to oppose like a ram the age which is moving forward 
and will move none the less, make rather an alli- 
ance with what is good in it, in order to tight against 
that which is injurious. If you can contribute anything 
to it, do it disinterestedly. That will be the best way 
to preserve for the world the good that is within you, 
for which you tight. I may add that it will be the most 
Christian way to fulfil your important mission. 



134 YOUTH. 



CHAPTER X. 
PATHS OF TO-MORROW. 

I fear that the work of the twentieth century will 
consist in taking out of the waste-basket a multi- 
tude of excellent ideas which the nineteenth cen- 
tury has heedlessly thrown into it. 

E. Renan. 1 

TTHE impression of disorder which we experienced 
* in drawing off a balance-sheet of existing society 
has increased in proportion as we continue our walk 
through youth. Confusion and anarchy seem the terms 
best fitted to express its mental state. In all that we 
have seen, there is but a continuation and an aggrava- 
tion of what has gone before. If we had only this to 
say, our book would be very depressing. We should 
never have written it. What would be the use of saying 
that decadence is going on, and that we are taking the 
downward road with an ever-quickening step ? Happily, 
this is not all. What we have stated thus far is only 
the dark side of the situation. There is an entirely 
different side, and one as real, which we have intention- 
ally reserved for the end. 

The first important point to consider is the spirit of 
disenchantment which more and more underlies char- 

1 Reception de M. Jules Claretie. 



PATHS OF TO-MORROW. 13 5 

acter. They who could enjoy living in a world without 
faith, without hope, and without love are few indeed. 
Even cynics have their days of depression. The world, 
such as it has become, pleases very few people. This is 
not a bad sign. Doubtless disenchantment of itself 
alone effects little ; but it amounts always to a general 
confession of insufficiency. We can see in it the nej 
tive form of an aspiration toward a better state. This 
aspiration makes itself felt in those who, warned by 
disenchantment, ask if we have not taken the wrong 
road. How many men, and above all young men, have 
been asking this little question of themselves for some 
time ? Others more advanced are positively cerl 
that we have taken the wrong road. For them the ex- 
perience of materialistic science and of realism is con- 
clusive on this point. The tree is judged by its fruil 
it is bad. Our spiritual and our material life languish 
because sacred and underlying laws have been broken. 
But it is not enough to be disenchanted, nor even to 
demand change. We have tried to show this in speak- 
ing of reaction among youth. How would be 
helped by going from one excess to another ? That 
would be to try to cure itself of o\k mutilation by a 
fresh mutilation of a different kind. The v. lich 
reaction invites us to enter to make us whole, has also 
had its trials. Humanity has not waited until V: 
tury to find itself in a strait, and even to feel stifk 
It is improbable that the lessons of history should 
forgotten by intelligent youth to such an extent as to 
render a general reactionary movement probable. It i^ 
enough, then, to observe what is passing, to convii 



136 YOUTH. 

us that reactionary tendencies, properly so called, are 
met only exceptionally, outside of the surroundings es- 
pecially created to bring them into existence and to 
cultivate them. 

Young men of independent thought, profoundly 
moved by existing problems, are seeking for them a 
solution less narrow and less illusory. A daily in- 
creasing number begin to understand that if there is a 
means of salvation it is in getting back to a normal 
life, in returning to fundamental principles, to the rudi- 
ments of things ; it is in absorbing the good from far 
and near, both past and present, wherever it finds the 
smallest, and in renouncing exclusive tendencies and 
party interests in order to become again simply men. 

In this path, which a part of our youth is about to 
take, it has had forerunners. It was impossible that 
the state of things which for so many years has existed 
in the world should not have affected certain minds. 
Could it ultimately have escaped those who think and go 
to the bottom of phenomena, that scientific materialism, 
industrialism, militarism, utilitarianism, all that sum 
total of products which reaction tries to lay to the ac- 
count of the modern spirit, were the most brutal nega- 
tions? It was not possible. That happened which 
could not but happen. Men by whom the contradic- 
tions of the century have been strongly felt have not 
ceased for an instant to point them out, to brand excess 
whether in theory or in practice, and to uphold amid 
the greatest discouragements the standard of human 
dignity, of the sanctity of spiritual things, of the high 
authority of conscience, and of all the realities which 



PATHS OF TO-MORROW. 137 

the so-called positive conception of existence, as well as 
the old dogmatic spirit, treated as chimeras. 

To cite from this phalanx two great names only, I 
will mention Edgar Quinet and Michelet, true prophets 
of the modern spirit. A flood of literature of every 
kind has drowned their voices, but what they have said 
is as true now as in their day ; more true, even, because it 
seems as if truth became more striking as it makes pro- 
gress against falsehood. These men, than whom none 
could be less suspected of denouncing science or democ- 
racy, have never ceased to point out their abuses and 
their errors, while inveighing against the old world of 
dogmatism. They have learned at the school of history 
respect for the soul of man in the integrity of its aspira- 
tions and its rights, and a hatred for all tyrannies ; and 
it is for this reason that their words breathe a lofty im- 
partiality, the result of the harmony within. They have 
found that golden mean, so hard to hold, about which 
error and excess have made society oscillate unceasingly 
from scepticism to belief, from anarchy to despotism. 
The direction they have indicated is the one wherein 
must be sought the solution of the problems which 
harass us. It goes without saying that I speak of direc- 
tion in general, and that I do not swear by the state- 
ments of any one man. 

Here, first, is an extract from Edgar Quinet, very 
touching as a prognostication of the future : " The bee 
prepares in advance food for the larvae about to hatch. 
Let us do as the bee does. Let us prepare food for the 
world about to be born, and place it beside its cradle." 
In the same book, I 'Esprit nouveau, we read : 4t When 



138 YOUTH. 

I see the storms of passion which sway existing genera- 
tions, and the kind of delirium which seizes every one, 
I say to myself that it is not from too great ambition 
that I desire to restore equilibrium to so many unbridled 
spirits. The age which contains such great evils surely 
contains their remedy, — near at hand, perhaps even 
lying at our very feet. 

" The mariner in the tempest often makes himself 
fast to the mainmast, that he may not be swept away 
by the winds. 1, in like manner, attach myself to that 
which I have found most fixed about me, — to the ideas 
and the truths which will outlive us all. 

" What is necessary to-day to lift us out of the abyss, 
— an hour of sincerity.' ' 

Let us copy a page from Michelet, which seems to 
have been written yesterday, so well does it sum up the 
present situation : — 

" One fact is incontestable. In the midst of so much 
material and intellectual progress the moral sense has 
been lowered. Everything is advancing and develop- 
ing ; one thing alone grows less, — the soul. 

" At this truly solemn moment, when the network of 
electric wires is extending over the whole world, cen- 
tralizing its thought and making it acquainted with 
itself, what soul are we to give it ? And what would 
happen if old Europe, from which it expects everything, 
should contribute only an impoverished soul ? 

" Europe is old, but she is also young in the sense 
that she has the genius of rejuvenescence against cor- 
ruption. She alone knows, sees, and foresees. If she 
wills it, all is safe." 



PATHS OF TO-MORROW. 139 

This spirit, happily, though it has never ceased to act, 
has begun to rise with a new vigour in all departments 
of our national education. 

It is doing there a work slow but far reaching, whose 
favourable results are daily more pronounced. I can- 
not wish other proofs than certain passages which I 
shall cite, adding thereto my prayers that they may be 
fruitful in practice. 

Here, first, are extracts from two addresses by the 
minister of public instruction, Monsieur Leon Bourgeois, 
— delivered at the Concours generaux, 1890 and 1891. 

In the first of these addresses, the speaker, after 
having described the different systems of instruction in 
the past of our nation, thus expresses himself : — 

" Our system of education should certainly be 
broader. Nothing in its past is without interest or use 
to it. A great French philosopher thus defined, a few 
days ago only, the aim of our instruction : ' It ought 
to make the evolution of mankind, with all that is best 
in it, an individual evolution.' 

" All the philosophic conditions, whose sequence we 
have recalled, have been preparatory to the modern 
spirit of humanity. All the results of culture, too, have 
been of partial use. Our task should be to recognize 
and preserve whatever good either of them can still 
contribute toward the formation and development of a 
contemporary spirit." 

The address of 1891 accentuates the preceding, 
marking thus the fixity and the energy of the move- 
ment : — 

" Have an ideal. An ideal is not merely, amid the 



140 YOUTH. 

stifling atmosphere of human egoism, a breath of pure 
air which revives and vivifies ; it is not, above the doubts 
of daily existence, a light which guides and saves us : 
it is something more than all this. I can express it in a 
single phrase, — to have an ideal is to have a reason for 
living. 

" We are preparing our youth not for such or such 
a career, but for life. If to give a man an ideal is to 
give a direction to his whole life, a motive and a spring 
to his whole existence, we should find in it the aim of 
our education, — the highest duty of the master. 

" A year ago I tried to show how necessary it is to 
the university to be a unit of thought and learning in 
shaping the intelligence of the youth of France. How 
much more necessary still is this unity of learning in 
the work of moral education, if the university wishes to 
attain its true object, to be what it should be, and that 
which the country demands of it, — the centre where 
are concentrated all the movements of the national con- 
science, and whence they are reflected on each new 
generation, — giving thus an impulse and life to the 
conscience of every one of its children. 

" When I speak of this unity of learning, need I add 
that it does not concern itself with forcing on the mind 
a system of philosophy, and of promulgating I know 
not what metaphysical dogma on the nature of good 
and evil ? The university of the republic respects all 
beliefs, and gives an example of tolerance to its most in- 
tolerant adversaries. Whatever opinion one may pro- 
fess on the problems which are eternally propounded to 
the limited intelligence of man, the idea of good exists, 



PATHS OF TO-MORROW. 141 

and, as a great French philosopher has said, that idea is 
a fact, and that fact is a force. And since society has 
existed, this force has not ceased to act on the world in 
tempering violence, in diminishing inequalities, in sub- 
stituting justice for despotism, liberty for constraint, soli- 
darity for hostility, in enlarging unceasingly the sphere 
of each man's duty toward others ; and notwithstanding 
backslidings, notwithstanding partial defeats of truth 
and right, notwithstanding transient apotheoses of arbi- 
trary power, in bringing humanity each day nearer the 
higher levels of peace, equipoise, and reconciliation. " 

It is a genuine anxiety for the future that runs through 
these words. When we are concerned with problems of 
education, the emptiness of some kinds of learning ap- 
pears to us more evident than at other times. To test 
the merits of a system of theology, or even of no matter 
what principles of thought and conduct, it is enough to 
weigh their educational value. All which cannot be 
boldly taught youth is of no value. It was then very 
natural that the men charged with the responsibility of 
a thorough national education should propound ques- 
tions such as these : — 

" On what will our successors live if the}' no longer 
believe in anything, hope for anything, nor respect 
anything ? What will support and console them, and 
give them strength to live and die in peace ? " 

We are men as were our fathers. Notwithstanding- 
outward changes, our hearts have the same needs as 
theirs. Can it be that what inspired them has disap- 
peared from the world ? Doubtless our conceptions 
have changed, our interpretation of the universe is 



142 YOUTH. 

modified. We are forced in the name of experience to 
protest against certain beliefs, and to refuse our assent 
to them. We, too, have our nan possumus. But under 
the decaying forms of other days, are there no perma- 
nent realities which can aid us? There is no such 
stimulant to labour as necessity, no such seeker as 
hunger. The frightful poverty of our spiritual life has 
inspired us with salutary reflections. We must, then, 
turn again to the past, not in a servile spirit, but to 
seize its soul and make it live anew. For the light of a 
new day has come to this past which seemed to be dis- 
appearing in the mists. As we see that it too reached 
the truth, feeling its way through devious paths, and 
building piece by piece its spiritual habitation, we have 
understood it better than those who have shown it to 
us en bloc as a cold heraldic creation. Under their 
rigid forms we have found life, warmth, the bloom of 
birth and development. Thus, drawn near us by the 
intimate relations which history has opened, our fathers 
give us that counsel which sums up all spiritual pater- 
nity : " Add the best of that which you have conquered 
to the best of that which we have left you, and you will 
live and will remake a country of the soul." 

Preoccupations analogous to those we have noticed 
engage the flower of our youth. While the greater 
number continue to drift with the current of realism, 
some have come out from it and look toward other hori- 
zons. The life of to-day is hard for the youth who thinks. 
There are so many things to unsettle it and so few to 



PATHS 0? TO-MORROW. 143 

establish it. Amid the ruins of old beliefs and the 
materials still unwrought of the new edifice, out of har- 
mony with the tendencies of the times, and surrounded 
by social troubles and by the relics of barbarism which 
our age drags behind it, like hideous rags beneath a 
king's robe, this youth has early come to feel anxiety 
for the future. The spectacle of scandals, of follies, 
of narrowness, of the abuse of brute force, of con- 
flicting interests, of all the great strife of men and 
things, has inspired in it a noble loathing and a mighty 
desire for justice and moderation. 

This desire shows itself in intellectual orientation, by 
a warm and kindly interest in all the manifestations of 
human intelligence. Young men have come to be- 
lieve — a rare thing at their age, but a sign of the times 
— that truth is no longer included in a formula, but that 
it exists somewhat wherever man has thought, investi- 
gated, or suffered anything interesting or true. Doubt- 
less this turn of mind recalls the multiform curiosity of 
dilettanteism, but it is also often an indication of that 
discreet reserve and of that desire for enlightenment 
which is the most favourable disposition in the search 
for truth. In a recent toast the present president of 
^Association des etudiants has characterized this kind 
of existence in a way which strikes in a refreshing 
fashion at party spirit : — 

" Our association is not one of those enlisted under 
the ephemeral standards of ambition, class, and party 
passions. It pursues slowly but surely a work of peace 
and knowledge only. It has the highest respect for the 
individual conscience ; it leaves untouched the personal 



144 YOUTH. 

convictions, the beliefs, whether political or religious, of 
every man. It is not drawn to any party, to any sect. 
It claims to be, before everything, — though not for- 
mally so called, — the youth of France, and especially the 
scholastic youth. We are and we wish to continue to be 
students, — those at least who are true to the scientific 
spirit, which is a spirit of disinterested tolerance, and to 
the democratic spirit, which is a spirit of justice and 
kindness. There are two great anxieties only common 
to us all, — the anxiety for the highest possible intellec- 
tual development, and the anxiety for social ameliora- 
tion ; for the first produces individuality, the second 
purifies it. Above the beliefs that divide us are the 
aspirations which draw us together ; it is these which 
we prefer/' 1 

To describe further the dominant trait of this youth, 
which is a respectful independence, I will say that it 
loves science, that it considers it as one of the supports 
of humanity, that it knows what we owe to it and what 
to hope from the exactness of its methods. Gladly 
does it applaud words like these : — 

" Time will doubtless revise, it will perhaps utterly 
destroy, some of the results acquired by contemporary 
science, — our systems of synthesis will perhaps last us 
no better than theirs lasted our predecessors ; but our 
methods of analysis, our rational view of the world, the 
general orientation of the scientific spirit, — these are 
acquisitions which can never hereafter perish except in 
a total downfall of civilization. This conviction has 
become the very basis of our understanding. On this 

1 H. BSrenger, Banquet de V Association, 1891. 



PATHS OF TO-MORROW. 145 

unassailable foundation all our rebuilding will be 
done." * 

At the same time it takes into consideration the limi- 
tations of science and its weaknesses: " We must 
before all recognize that neither science nor democ- 
racy is sufficient to itself. Without the higher law 
which reconciles them, they are only blind and barbaric 
forces. Science is not sufficient in itself. In what, in- 
deed, do all the highest scientific generalizations end, if 
not in the idea of movement, itself incomprehensible 
without the mysterious idea of force, — that is to say, a 
purely pyschological idea ? The origin of all modern 
science is a self-evident truth borrowed from the mind 
itself. Democracy, too, is not sufficient in itself. It 
would be simply a savage fight of classes and interests, 
if it were not dominated by the spirit of justice and of 
charity. It is then, finally, the mind and its highest, 
most active, and most fruitful principle, love, which 
ought to direct modern evolution." 2 

There is, at the bottom of this, thorough sincerity and 
a fine spirit of justice. Many conversations, investiga- 
tions made in various centres of study, and the reading 
of those varied and ephemeral productions which fill 
the papers and the reviews of the young, have convinced 
me that these tendencies are not isolated. A new orien- 
tation announces itself. 

We can nowadays hear young men, preoccupied 
with intellectual affairs, scoff at those two terrible god- 
desses, analysis and criticism. Not that they discredit 

1 M. de Vogue, Banquet de V Association, 1S90. 

2 H. Bereuger, Bulletin de t 'Association, fevr. 1890. 



146 YOUTH. 

the spirit of discernment, and after having despised 
mystery fall in the opposite extreme of denying the 
rights of reason and judgment; but they consider 
that criticism, which is based on the point of view of 
positive science, when applied at random to the affairs 
of the intellect becomes an aberration. To use the 
judgment in this way, is to lack judgment. Each lock 
must be opened with its own key. One kind of criti- 
cism would simply suppress history by its mode of con- 
ceiving historic certainty, as it suppressed spiritual reali- 
ties by obstinately refusing to call facts those only which 
are facts in a material sense. That grand truth so author- 
itatively proclaimed by H. Lotze, "the role of mech- 
anism in the world is as universal as it is absolutely 
subordinate,'' 1 is slowly making its way in our minds. 

Analysis carried to extremes, which had reached the 
point of causing real disease in the young, sees its 
prestige diminish. In vain it calls itself inexorable, its 
charm is broken for many. They do not feel them- 
selves face to face with a hundred-eyed monster who sees 
everything, and searches the very bones and marrow, but 
face to face with a gratuitous and sometimes ridiculous 
pretence. They are irreverent enough to find that the 
analysis which aligns in formulas and by measure our 
being, our feelings, thought, and life, is most of the time 
only like dismemberment or sleight of hand. In this 
fashion do our children analyze their dolls, and clever 
jugglers make mountains of things come out of a hat. 
He who claims to have analyzed us should be able to put 
us together again after he has taken us apart. The time 

1 H. Lot^e : Mikrokosmos. 



PATHS OF TO-MORROW. 147 

has passed when an abstract knowledge of our mate- 
rial being sufficed us to explain man. Problems come 
to life, of which those who call thought a secretion of 
the brain, have no idea, and which are not suspected by 
those minds in which psychology seems to be con- 
founded with physiology. That little phrase / know, 
formerly so sure of itself and so self-satisfied, meets in- 
credulity everywhere. The sense of mystery, which is 
indeed but one of the forms of the sense of reality, has 
awakened in face of the unknown. That no one can 
explain life ; that no one can bridge the abyss which 
separates material action from thought, from the sim- 
plest sensation even ; that there are mysteries without 
number in the domain of every day, where, neverthe- 
less, we move with ease, — this is what now strikes all 
who reflect. Respect for science has not diminished, 
but respect for man, for the invisible realities, has 
increased. 

Doubtless it would be puerile to give way to hope too 
easily. We climb with pain the slopes we descended so 
quickly. But the movement exists, it is an actual fact, 
and it is not youth alone who is affected. Everywhere 
they who search and think are trying to lift the leaden 
canopy under which humanity can no longer submit 
to live. 

The especial attention which the most diverse minds 

e to the religious feeling, so lately scorned, is not one 

of the least symptoms of this search for new paths. 

There are main- ways of looking at this subject, and 

often a great lack of knowledge of its history. Some 



148 YOUTH. 

confound Catholicism with Christianity, and see in it 
the salvation of the future; others speak of a renais- 
sance of the gospel in the sense of the modern spirit ; 
others are enthusiasts for esoterism, theosophy, the 
comparative study of religions ; others still are wait- 
ing to see absolutely new horizons rise of such an ex- 
tent that we shall see at last the synthesis, so laboriously 
pursued, of all the past and all the present. " One 
of the marks of the youth of to-day — I speak of think- 
ing youth — is a longing for the divine." * We receive 
this testimony with pleasure. Incomplete though the 
manifestation of this feeling is, we rejoice at it. What 
is important, above all, is the state of mind which gave 
it birth. It is very interesting to note how that state of 
mind shows itself in the centres more particularly de- 
voted to religious studies. We meet in them every day 
a large number of young men who have cut loose from 
extremes. Where their predecessors were intrenched 
in orthodoxy or in rationalism, and where these archaic 
distinctions still suffice for the multitude, we see them 
resolutely clearing a new road. They have gone be- 
yond the narrow point of view of unyielding ortho- 
doxy, and beyond even that of negative criticism, — 
two exaggerations equally powerless to appreciate the 
soul's affairs. Their aim is to lose nothing of tradition 
and to sacrifice no right of the present, but to apply 
themselves to discovering truth no matter where they 
find it, to render it homage, and to express it in 
language as simple and practical as possible. Party 
spirit, which has been for a long time the soul of reli- 

1 E. Lavisse : La generation de 1890. 



PATHS OF TO-MORROW. 149 

gious centres, and which continues to be its evil genius, 
is held by them in horror. 

The whole literature of youth is gradually taking on 
new shades. A mysticism, sometimes healthful, some- 
times pernicious, but which, under each and every form, 
is in contrast with the realism of the period before it, 
shows itself in a multitude of poems and essays on 
various subjects. We read now frequently writings by 
the young which would have appeared strange and even 
impossible a few years ago, and which foretell a new 
literary flora. The leaven is spreading and continually 
gaining strength. Without knowing or planning it, 
studious youth are stirred by similar aspirations, and 
often give them identical expression. In a word, there 
is a new life stirring. 

More heartily than these signs of a thought which 
seeks new rules, and of a morality preoccupied with the 
search for a new basis, do we welcome a new movement 
which has been accentuating itself among youth for 
some years. This movement is still very feeble, if we 
look at its practical results, though they already begin 
to show ; but it is real. 

I speak of the social movement. My profound con- 
viction is that this movement will be the pivot of human 
thought and action in the coming age. It is under this 
particular form that the philosophical, religious, scien- 
tific, and international problems which exercise the 
world will find a temporary solution. They suggest 
themselves more and more as the separate constituents 



150 YOUTH. 

of the same grand problem of humanity, and all reach 
their culmination in the question of the organization of 
life. All departments of the moral or material govern- 
ments of the world of to-day have had to deal with 
social questions. They have gained such strength that 
they force themselves on the attention of great and 
small alike. The oldest powers, whether temporal or 
spiritual, — they who have been accustomed to disregard 
the opinions of the masses, their happiness and their 
misery, and to lay their clutch on every one, — are sud- 
denly brought down to giving their attention to these 
erstwhile despised questions. We can well say that the 
stone rejected by the builders has become the headstone 
of the corner. Men who are accustomed to seeing 
youth in the advance guard of new movements are as- 
tonished to see ours so long unmoved, so impassible, be- 
fore the social question. For many, a few years since, 
it had no existence. Happily it has to-day taken a firm 
hold of the majority, and it must be admitted that it is 
in good hands. Youth takes these questions in that 
broad human spirit which they demand. They have 
lost greatly under other treatment. Selfish interests and 
unavowed ambitions have too often seized on social 
questions to make use of them, and to sterilize them at 
the same time. With the multitude, they easily degen- 
erate into material questions. Nothing will contribute 
like the accession of our studious youth to give to this 
complicated social problem its true breadth, and to re- 
store to it all the elements which belong to it as a whole. 
I shall return to the subject later. It will suffice now to 
mention the admirable fruit which it has already borne 



PATHS OF TO-MORROW. 151 

among youth. It has awakened its esprit de corps ; it 
has encouraged solidarity, unity, and organization. It 
has brought teachers nearer the students, and students 
nearer teachers, making them foresee in those reunions 
>se memory will never fade, the happiness which 
consists in discovering that they are brothers and mem- 
bers ■::' the same body. How can generations live and 
die wit! :, in all its powerful charm, this 

and holy bond, commonplace though it be 

nsider the founding ::" our Association generate 

HudianH and similar societies as ::ie of the hap- 

: events among our contemporary youth. At the 

sam youth feels itself drawn toward the 

The feeling :. : not yet reciprocated; but if the 

desire for fraternization is aroused on one side, that is 

enough to bring it at Men of heart and action point 

out this field as >ne : i advance must 

le. I cannot refrain from citing here the words 

the banquet of the Associa- 

u You must love still 

another thing,- of which 

just now uently, but 

which you e all, have 

in our sympathies, for our 

to ; not in our labours, for we h. 

nd much that it does not believe and 

II not allow itself to believe ; but you must love it 

i, and through individual a 

Social ten- 

predilection for men of 



152 YOUTH. 

action, and for writers who, like Monsieur Melchior de 
Vogue, show us in their writings a generous conception 
of life and new reasons for struggling and hoping. Cer- 
tain intellectual states, lately so highly esteemed, seem 
now simply idleness and desertion. Man is placed in the 
world for personal exertion, and he must share its 
work. We are beginning to believe in effort, in moral 
force and its pre-eminence over every other power. 
Optimists are succeeding pessimists, and sociologists are 
succeeding egoists. But whatever be the reasons for 
the present change, it is evident that we must rejoice in 
it. From whatever quarter confidence may have re- 
turned to youth, it is welcome. I know that youth is 
severe in its judgment of its predecessors, even unjustly 
so. They who to-day and not without self-sufficiency, 
plume themselves on their political positions, would be 
greatly surprised could they hear themselves judged by 
their immediate successors. In their eyes they would 
seem like characters from another epoch, if not another 
order of beings. The dogma of parties, the subtlety of 
the distinctions that divide them, many a question to- 
day of vital importance, and especially our incapacity for 
revising our opinions, — all these would seem to them 
like the phenomena of a very old civilization. The 
young romanticists of [8)0 had no more sarcasms for 
the classicists than our young sociologists have for 
politicians. 

The daily wear of life will correct these exaggerations. 
It is reassuring to know that young men propose to 
mingle in its affairs, that they take it very seriously, 
that they see clearly in it their duties, that they set them- 



PATHS OF TO-MORROW. 153 

selves to find out by study and reflection ways and 
means to accomplish them, that their young imagination 
kindles with sensibility, and that their mental outlook is 
not at all a narrow one, nor are the aspirations of their 
hearts limited. We may ask whence comes this sudden 
change whose signs we have enumerated. Ought we 
to see in it only a natural reaction provoked by the ten- 
dencies of the preceding period ? This is a factor, and 
a strong one. But is it not astonishing that such a con- 
trast can be noted between one generation and another ? 
For my part I cannot refrain from congratulating our 
country on this new spirit. If belief in exertion has 
been reborn, we owe it to that great energetic act in 
which have been concentrated so many good wishes 
and persistent hopes, and which we may call our up- 
rising. This fact is in itself alone a superb contradic- 
tion to the fatal and grosser powers, at the same time 
that it furnishes an argument for the modern spirit. 
There is nothing astonishing in that, To him who is 
not blind this lesson is one of the grandest that can be 
beheld. Youth alone is not affected. Do we not see 
by the side of the awakening of belief in mystery, in 
human dignity, and in social justice, another movement 
far outside our national boundaries ? The human soul 
begins to shudder beneath the heavy chain of mate- 
rialism, in the domain of ideas, of brute force, and in 
that of facts. Right is in the ascendant ; force is cast 
down. Everywhere belief in purely material power 
totters. What a sign of the times it is, that on leaving 
a period like our own, where it sometimes seems as if 
justice and love were silenced forever, our hearts catch 



154 YOUTH. 

themselves beating at their very names. The ice is melt- 
ing from Europe ; our youth feels in its veins the sap of 
spring. At this moment, when many belated souls are 
preaching the old regime, and are offering to cure us of 
all our ills in exchange for our liberty, this is what I 
see most clearly : the star of democratic France, ob- 
scured for a moment by brute force, and scoffed at in 
turn by the partisans of the old despotism or the new 
barbarism, climbing the horizon like the harbinger of 
better times. 

But what influence can this movement which we see 
manifesting itself have on the youth of the people ? 
It is difficult at the moment to decide. One can always 
lay down the rule that it is among the people that old 
things last longest. Virgil has said, — 

. . . Extrema per illos 
Justitia excedens terris vestigia fecit. 

It is among the people that we find good old cus- 
toms years after they have disappeared elsewhere. We 
even meet antediluvian fashions, old books which no 
one any longer reads, and old worn-out arguments. We 
must therefore wait for a long time yet, until the ideas 
whose awaking we have pointed out make their slow 
way among the masses. They will reach them, as ne- 
gations have reached them, by that same power of ex- 
ample and of radiation which we have shown to be 
inevitable. They will circulate more quickly through 
the young, and from them will work through the 
masses, if that harmony so desirable between educated 



PATHS OF TO-MORROW. 155 

youth and the youth of the people can be brought 
about. The France of to-day needs to raise, each day 
more and with greater firmness and clairvoyance, a high 
democratic ideal, and to infuse it with public spirit. 
Without tnat ideal, despite its prerogatives and its 
liberties, a democracy falls rapidly under the regime 
of error, and passes through disorders into servitude. 
While waiting for youth to recognize and practise in 
all their extent the duties of an intermediary between 
the highest intelligences and the masses, we will rely a 
little on a pure press, on good books, — in a word, on 
all good influences, and especially on a new ally of 
immense import where youth is concerned, — the school. 
I ask to explain myself in detail, because the subject is 
so momentous. 

There are institutions which recall the old scapegoat 
which the Israelites loaded with all their sins, and which, 
when he finally escaped from their hands, accursed and 
racked with blows, plunged into the desert, hearing be- 
hind him, to spur him on his way to death, the outcries 
and imprecations of a whole people. The lay school is 
one of these institutions. In some mouths its name 
sounds almost like the devil's school. For these persons 
it is the antechamber of the jail. Its teachers doubtless 
curse, instead of praying, and in their precious lessons 
teach youth veritable abominations. 

One of the rules of prudence, in these days of skilful 
perversion of facts, is to inform itself scrupulously as to 
persons or institutions which are bitterly attacked. In 
the interests of justice, I have followed this rule for a 



156 YOUTH. 

long time, and I have proved that it is the best things 
which are worst spoken of. My rule, then, necessitates 
a visit to the primary school. Why so many outcries, 
so many accusations, such persistent hate ? Let us in- 
form ourselves thoroughly and with impartiality. 

My best way to get the information would have been 
to become a pupil. But I have passed the limit of age. 
Besides, I was one formerly for many years. We were 
taught the catechism, it is true, but so little and so 
badly that we would have done better to learn it 
outside. But apart from lessons in the catechism, the 
master was a good man, and his words were full of 
straightforwardness, of good sense, and of tact, and I 
shall never forget them. Certainly this may have 
changed since then. To satisfy myself thoroughly, I 
set myself to study the programmes, the methods, the 
personal instruction in the different grades, in order to 
get an insight into the instruments, the organization, 
the spirit of this institution which was denounced to me 
as in the highest degree corrupting. Not content with 
examining it from the point of view of the teachers, 
I examined it from that of the scholars. I entered into 
the life of some of these young patients, my especial 
friends. I felt their pulse and listened to their heart- 
beats, that I might trace the effects of the instruction 
given them ; and this is what I think on the subject. 
The greatest work that has been done in twenty years 
is that which has been unostentatiously carried on by 
the public school. It is the true medium of national 
education, the modest intermediary, but one, far-reach- 
ing indeed, between the people and those heights where 



PATHS OF TO-MORROW. 157 

modern thought in its loftiest sense is developed. An 
intermediary, serious, prudent, and disinterested, it ap- 
plies itself to condensing human affairs into some simple 
principles as a firm basis whence one can make an 
orientation of public spirit in practical life just as one 
has made an intellectual and moral orientation. But it 
has one great fault, I confess. It is its wish to serve 
every one, and to remain within the limits of universal 
equity and human unity. This renders it absolutely 
unsuited to the requirements of party spirit. Not only 
is it of no service to it, but if anything can injure or 
weaken that spirit, it is the school. 

That a school be unsectarian, free from connection 
with this or that religion, independent, in a word, from 
the point of view of the confessional, is a great good. 
You feel the necessity of saying to children, even from 
their school-benches, that there are different ways of 
believing and worshipping, and that there are profound 
dissimilarities between men which ought to be empha- 
sized, in order not to make of man an abstraction. For 
my part, I recognize another need : it is to leave them in 
ignorance of this state of things as long as possible, 
and to bring them up first as brothers. In laying thus 
a common human basis of respect, it seems to me that 
we help on the disp ition which one must be in to say, 
Our Father who art in heaven. On the contrary, 
in isolating them with care, in order to give different 
kinds of religious instruction, we risk strengthening in 
them the feelings which find utterance in: Lord, 1 
thank thee that I am not as other men. I persist, 
then, in considering freedom from religious control is 



158 YOUTH. 

of advantage to the school, provided always, on the other 
hand, that it is not connected with an anti-religious sect. 
This last supposition, born of the excessive zeal of some 
fanatic laics and urged besides from ill-will, is nullified 
by its entire practice and spirit. No, the unsectarian 
school is not a godless school. It has left the region 
of detail to mount to higher planes. The things of the 
soul there taught belong to an universal domain, — that 
domain where we fraternize above all petty differences. 
In religion, as in politics and in morality, individual 
and social, the unsectarian school is before everything 
human. I see it inspire, more and more, certain prin- 
ciples, moderate, vigorous, and indispensable, which are 
the quintessence of practical wisdom and the basis of 
society. We live in an age when we must search fields 
in common, that we may gain strength and march to- 
ward the future hand in hand. Whatever the religion 
to which we adhere, and even if we adhere to none at 
all, such as we are, rank and file, we have need to be- 
come converts to humanity. It is the grand aspiration 
of the noblest souls of this crumbling and inquiet age. 
Something of this aspiration, very modern and very 
widely open to all that is just and true, has entered into 
the primary school May if increase and spread ! Since 
I have realized this, the humble roof of the school, its 
walls, its benches, its blackboards, the silent and patient 
labours of its masters and scholars, assume in my eyes 
an immense importance ; and when I see the evils that 
devour this nation, the passions that divide it, the crises 
it passes through, — all the ensemble, in short, of what 
one dreads when he loves mankind, — one of mjf 



PATHS OF TO-MORROW. 159 

hopes and my consolations is the little common school. 
We must love, respect, and sustain it. We ought all to 
attend it during our early years, that it may form in the 
heart of our being a solid and common base, which will 
remain to us as a precious souvenir, even after each of 
us shall have travelled different roads in life and thought, 
toward the most distant horizons. 

In clearing the way for the reparative ideas, and the 
new life which should save us, little by little, from the 
evils from which we suffer, we have an ally deep in the 
heart of the people. The people have a generous heart, 
and they suffer. Neither their generosity nor their suf- 
fering can reconcile them long to the world without 
pity, which realism has begot. The more progress this 
made, the more hideous did it seem, the more odious 
did it become ; and already an obscure presentiment re- 
veals to the man of the people that in losing hope, dig- 
nity, and faith in his destiny, he loses his most precious 
treasure ; and that, when he loses reverence, he is work- 
ing for his own destruction. Trusting and fighting for 
the right, let us live for it, and sooner than we perhaps 
dare to hope it will win the masses. 

I conclude, then, that notwithstanding the black clouds 
that fill our horizon, notwithstanding the troubles, the 
errors, the faults, from whose consequences we are suf- 
fering, there is reason to be confident and to take 
courage. Something new is born in the heart of our 
youth. " An evolution is under way, mysterious still, 
but close at hand, and perhaps of great proportions." 1 

1 H. Birenget : La jeunesse intellectuelU ct U ronton franfais 
contemporaine. 



160 YOUTH. 

They who rouse in the night, and anxiously scan the 
horizon, breathe again. In truth, we are waking from 
a gloomy nightmare. Standing on the brink of nothing- 
ness, we have measured its depth. We have felt hope 
and belief die within us ; but the dream is over, and al- 
ready where the night is paling, grows on our eyes the 
white line of the dawn. It is not yet a distinct line, — 
a thin silvery fringe, rather, on the thick and heavy gar- 
ments of the night ; but at its sight hope reawakens. 
The future has still happy days ; the end of belief and 
love is not yet. Courage now, and strong hearts! 
Against the brutal law of a vanishing egoism, against 
sophistry in ideas and life, we must oppose justice, 
truth, and simplicity. But that we may be stronger 
and see life better, — for the future is for clear-sighted 
believers, — let us steep ourselves in its sources and 
climb its heights. 



Book Third. 



TOWARD THE SOURCES 

AND 

THE HEIGHTS. 



Lucem in alto quaerens. vitam in pro- 
fundis. 



23ooft SHjhfo 



CHAPTER I. 
IS THE WORLD OLD ? 
I have come too late into a world too old. 

A. DE MUSSET. 
Die unbegreiflich hohen Werke 
Sind herrlich wie am ersten Tag - . 

Goethe. 

TS the world old ? The Preacher thought so. There 
^ is nothing new under the sun, said this disillusioned 
old man ; and the impression of senile lassitude which 
these words betray has left an echo running through 
expiring centuries and worn-out lives. Everything is 
old ; everything has been said and resaid, seen and re- 
seen. There is no more freshness, nothing that has not 
been published abroad. The words " wonderful, unfore- 
seen, admirable,'' or simply the word " new," are terms 
of a vocabulary out of use. The qualities which they 
express have ceased to exist. The sun is old, the world, 
the bald mountains, the riven rocks ; old is human life 
and all that it contains ; old is misery, old is love ; all 
our works are old ; our art and literature are but old 
rubbish worked over. Society is so old that the new- 
born are born old. They are worn out before they have 
lived, tired before they have worked ; the mark of 



164 YOUTH. 

decrepitude is on their forehead. And this impression 
of atrophy and decay our century has but accentuated 
by its excess, its feverish life, its rage to see everything, 
to classify everything, and to define everything. All its 
roads are worn. Everywhere we advance in some one's 
tracks. The earth and history, the material and the 
spiritual world, all have been gone over. If, to escape 
this horrible impression of living on warmed-over dishes, 
we try to take refuge in the bosom of the past, the old 
religions give the same impression under a form still 
more accentuated. For them, indeed, everything has 
been known, fixed, and controlled in advance, since time 
immemorial. We live for the ten thousandth time the 
same life, we must repeat the same formulas that others 
have repeated before us and that others will repeat after 
us, and it will be the same till the end of time. The 
account of the infinite is made up. There is nothing 
more to be discovered. There is no more revelation, 
because God himself, God more than anything else, is 
old ; he has ceased creating for a long time. 

Do not believe a word of this. These are the argu- 
ments and the impressions of those who confound the 
world with their own poor little existence. 

" There are times when we grow old more quickly 
than at others. In the days of scepticism our souls 
age rapidly, because they know not where to draw fresh 
strength. Not a spiritual conversation is there, nor a 
breath from the higher regions ! Man makes himself 
dust before he is dead, and sees it not. Herein is the 



IS THE WORLD OLD? 165 

danger of our times, — moral drought. Let us seek, 
then, new springs whence we may drink while our 
thirst is still alive." 1 

There are, truly, things which command respect from 
their age, and others from being often seen ; but if 
this is true of a relative truth, it is much more true, 
and indeed absolutely true, that nothing is old under the 
sun, not even the sun itself. Everything is new. The 
newest of all, perhaps, are the commonplaces which have 
always filled the life of man, and before which the 
novelties of the day, which wither and fade so quickly, 
count as little as the moment that takes its flight into 
eternity. Everything old ! said over and over and thor- 
oughly known ! One must be ignorant, indeed, to say 
that. The truth is, that we know almost nothing, that 
we have only vestiges of knowledge, and that beyond 
them stretches that great unknown whence spring 
every instant the most astounding surprises. For each 
worn rut there are endless regions where no foot of 
man has ever trod. In the material universe, as in the 
life of the soul and in human society, so great is the 
virgin soil that what we know is as nothing- in 
comparison. 

And yet how do we know this ? What relation 
does the portion of the world which man has stirred 
with the shovel and the plough bear to the immensity 
of space and of worlds ? Exactly the same as our knowl- 
edge and our experience bear to the reality of things. 
The spaces we have traversed are like a child's step 
on the vault of heaven. Our vices, even those most 
1 Edgar Qmmei : L Esprit nam 



166 YOUTH. 

frightful, cannot soil creation. What is the little foul 
air with which we surround our abnormal existence, in 
comparison with the blasts which blow over snowy 
summits and sweep across oceans ? 

We have repeated too often the saying of the Preacher. 
Youth has assimilated it. The first condition of a re- 
naissance of true life is to throw overboard this idle 
talk of a Uasi and disillusioned octogenarian. Happy 
they who understand this, for it is the beginning of 
salvation. Unhappily there are those who have lost 
the ability to understand it. There are persons for whom 
everything is absolutely old. A society in such a state 
is ready for collapse, and men in such a state are ready 
for nothingness. These things are premonitions of 
death, symptoms of a catastrophe close at hand. Let 
us leave this way of speaking to those who have reached 
the end of their world, and take boldly for ourselves the 
motto of those who are beginning it. 

The first good and the first duty of a young man is 
to be young. To real youth everything is young. The 
capacity to feel and discover the newness and the fresh- 
ness of the world keeps fresh its soul and life. It is 
curious about everything ; everything impresses it, and 
over everything, corporeal as well as spiritual, floats for 
them that aureole which opens to them through finite 
things a vision of the infinite. Life is a revelation, — a 
revelation on a grand scale to humanity, and a special 
revelation to each individual. We lay bare the world 
through our own conscience and that of humanity. 
In vain has man loved, hated, prayed, investigated, 
suffered, and died for innumerable centuries. For 



IS THE WORLD OLD? 167 

those who are passing through it all, who are living for 
their own sakes and not by proxy, love, hate, prayer, 
research, suffering, and death are as new as at their 
birth. Nature takes care that these things do not grow 
old. All the stains, the crimes, the impostures, the 
falsehoods of mankind cannot prevent there always be- 
ing those who discover for themselves love, the reli- 
gion of the heart, the pleasures of learning and research, 
just as if no one had ever experienced these things be- 
fore. Nothing is truer than this. Creation is won- 
derfully rich. To find it poor, one must be sterilized 
oneself. An abnormal and artificial life produces this 
result. In vain do men declare, write, publish, and sing 
or bewail in every key that the world is old, worn out, 
and commonplace ; the birds sing a denial, the roaring 
ocean shouts it aloud, the sun and world proclaim it 
louder still, and all agree that youth and growth are the 
eternal foundations of all things. 



168 YOUTH. 



CHAPTER II. 
LIFE. 

j^oto toe must take it. 

WHAT is life? 

*^ Poets have called it a dream, — beautiful for 
some, evil for others, but without other consistence. 
It has been called a burden, also, and a strife. Material- 
istic science has tried to explain life as a series of assimi- 
lations and disorganizations ; for it life is a phenomenon 
of organic chemistry. Philosophers seek an answer in 
metaphysics, and theologians in religion. Cur simus 
conditi (Melancthon). In short, no one has explained 
it, and no one ever will explain it. The Bible says, in 
language of incomparable beauty : In the beginning God 
created the heaven and the earth ; but it does not give 
his reasons nor his methods. Nevertheless we live. I 
do not imagine that even the most curious await, as a 
condition of living, the secret of life. The wisest thing 
is to consider this question simply from a human point 
of view, which is this : Life is a fact. This fact ante- 
dates our reason. We are alive before we are conscious 
of it, before we have proof of it. When we reach the 
point of recognizing our existence, we have existed for 
a long time, and there is no way out of it. Man, in- 
deed, can as little destroy himself as he can create him- 
self. Non-existence, as well as existence, is beyond his 



LIFE. 169 

power. But once we recognize that we are alive, we 
must consider this fact, that we may act accordingly. 
Though we cannot explain it, there are a thousand ways 
of appreciating or depreciating existence, of using it or 
abusing it. 

Human life appears to us the flower of the life of the 
globe ; and the life of the globe, at every stage of its 
evolution, presents itself as the highest result of all the 
hidden labours of the active forces of Nature. Life is 
the result of an immeasurable number of preceding 
efforts. For our instruction geologic strata unveil their 
mysteries to our eyes, and show us, through successive 
forms, a constant advance toward perfection. The ar- 
chives of human history depict the like efforts on a 
higher plane, and under aspects more impressive, because 
they appeal more to us. Our life is then a result ; but 
it is impossible for thought to grasp its endless chain, 
reaching back into the night of time, without feeling 
obliged to prolong the chain into the future. In truth, if 
life is a result, it is a promise also. It is the most elo- 
quent form of aspiration and design. For as we live 
through a power we do not control, so we bear within 
us the results of struggles in which we have not parti- 
cipated, and we virtually contain the future. Engrossed 
in its advance, which astonishes us by its rapidity or its 
slowness according to the moment, we are as it were 
enwrapped, despite ourselves, in that first cause which 
has originated all things, makes them what they are, 
and leads them through every stage of transformation 
to the end indicated in their very essence. At the same 
time we feel that we can draw away from this first 



170 YOUTH. 

cause or draw closer to it. We enjoy a kind of free- 
will, limited by our very nature, which constitutes the 
basis of our liberty and our responsibility. 

In a word, our life is the resume of long labours and 
the prophecy of a whole future. We can join in these 
labours, and can collaborate with the future, or we 
can antagonize them and it. If we rise to a religious 
conception, we can state this certitude in this way : 
Our life is the grand combined work of God and 
humanity, and their great hope. Man is the expecta- 
tion of God. In thus speaking we affirm the value of 
life as against those who despise or depreciate it. We 
affirm it not only against the disciples of nothingness, 
but even against certain religious ascetics, who confound 
in the term " worldly vanities " the artificial life which 
is the result of our errors and our faults with life itself. 
With their gloomy views as to our wretched existence, 
they actually have the air of creditors of the Almighty, 
declaring the present world in bankruptcy. At the very 
least, according to them, the earth is only a badly 
planned colony, an enterprise which has failed, which is 
only supported at the expense of the mother country, 
and which is no credit to her. 

I am going to dwell further on this way of taking 
life, for I wish to make it clear that it is not the result 
of fantasy, but entirely in the nature of things. 

La Fontaine has said, — 

On a souvent besoin d' un plus petit que sot. 

To appreciate life man has need of some one smaller 
than himself, and I affirm that above all does civilized 



LIFE. 171 

man, the man of letters, or the young- student accus- 
tomed to a life of thought and to investigate the real 
reasons of things, need beings simpler than himself, in 
order to thoroughly understand existence. In propor- 
tion as he submits his life to analysis and to rational 
examination, is he tempted to confound it with what he 
has learned, and to find in it only that which he has 
seen or thinks he has seen. To enter thoroughly into 
the facts of life, its power, its stubbornness, the in- 
vincible animation in it, it must be observed among 
simple people, who hold it fast with all the energy of 
unconsciousness. 

When one lays down at the outset of his life a 
syllogism, and deduces his existence and its purpose 
from certain arguments, he has built on a very frail 
foundation. You have often seen little children play- 
ing at the foot of large rocks and propping them up 
with wisps of straw or bits of rotten wood. Life rests 
on our arguments, as the rocks on these fragile sup- 
ports. If it had only these for support, it would long- 
since have gone down in nothingness and despair. The 
reasons which man gives to himself for life are always 
insufficient. It is important to declare this ; for it is not 
a weakness, but a strength. Life ought to be taken as 
are the rocks, the mountains, as are the stars of heaven ; 
that is, as are all realities against which — Heaven be 
praised! — we are powerless, and which exist of them- 
selves alone. It is taken thus by those simpler beings 
to whom I have alluded. I mean animals and children, 
and that healthful and robust class of the people in 
whom lies the reserve force of life, as the reserve force 



1 72 YOUTH. 

of rivers lies in the glaciers. We are in the habit of 
saying that these beings are under the impression of 
the moment, that the present governs them. We can 
say more truly still, that at the moment of strong im- 
pressions there is for them neither past, present, nor fu- 
ture. They hold life sub specie ceterni. I have in mind 
especially children and persons such as I have just now 
described, and who, I admit, are rare. They are truly 
alive, because their impressions are wondrously strong, 
and they show it. Everything is real and stable to 
them- Recall the memories of your childhood, — the 
paternal roof, your father's and your mother's face, the 
smallest tree, the least stone, and above all, in the world 
of morality, the positive and clear-cut distinction be- 
tween good and evil which characterizes a child, and 
often puts to shame grown people. Later on the idea 
of time and of relationship intermingles with a crowd of 
memories which deaden these impressions, but all that 
is seen, heard, or touched in infancy is clearly defined. 
Existence, with its fixity, its necessity, its sculptural 
reality, appears to the child and to the simple-minded 
man as a vision of eternity. This is why their tears are 
so touching, so real, so despairing, and their laughter so 
joyous. Childhood and the people have not discovered 
that melancholy and unwholesome phrase, — life is a 
dream. There is only one word to designate their feel- 
ing as to it, but the word is perfect. They believe that 
it exists. Are we not here in agreement with that 
most living of men, with him who said, I am the life? 
Has He not said, Consider the birds and the flowers ? 
Has He not said, Be like little children ? And this is, 



LIFE. 173 

in truth, our answer to the question, How must we take 
life ? To take life as a fact, a primordial fact ; to con- 
sider it as a real thing, important in all its parts ; to take 
it au serieux ; to take it as does a happy-hearted, health- 
ful, thoughtless child, as do the people who have not 
undergone our intellectual dislocations, — this is what 
must be done if we would still feel its powerful, never- 
failing tide — if, in a word, we would be young. This 
is its foundation stone. 



174 YOUTH. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE IDEAL. 

'THE instinctive love of life may go astray and 
degenerate into that excess which in every one 
turns a quality into a defect. When we say that we 
must love life, that we must hold to it with all our 
hearts, that we must consider it as our chief good, we do 
not mean to speak of that cowardly and egoistic love 
which clings to personal existence and its pleasures. It is 
life in general, in all its breadth and with all that it con- 
tains, which we mean. Life may be loved as the brute 
loves it, — the miserable animal which values only the 
ability to eat, drink, sleep, and enjoy itself. It may be 
loved as the coward loves it, — he who dreads suffer- 
ing above everything, and whose acts are inspired by 
fear alone. This is a wretched way to love life. This 
is not knowing it ; it is being interested in its surface 
simply, and leaving its depths unexplored. Though 
there are, unhappily, many men who look at it in this 
way, the great majority have never done so. There are 
always those who love life for the good to which it 
may be consecrated, — in a word, for that which may be 
made of it. It is in this sense that the Greeks, stig- 
matizing this inferior love of it, attached a shade of 



THE IDEAL. 175 

disgrace to the adjective </>iA.o/?u>s. It is in this sense 
that Schiller has said, — 

Der Gllter grosstes tst nicht dieses Leben, 
Der Uebel grosstes aber tst die Schuld. 1 

These words preach no contempt of life, but the 
contrary. If the spirit of devotion and sacrifice is 
possible, — and Heaven knows that humanity has fur- 
nished and does furnish every day proofs incontesta- 
ble, — if man can give himself to a cause, it is not 
because he despises life. On the contrary, it is because 
he is animated by a higher conception and another love 
than that which we repel. The baser love makes us 
lose life, because it rivets us to that which is only its 
husk ; the higher love preserves life for us, though it 
may even urge us to lose it. 

In truth, this is very simple, though it is, after all, the 
greatest thing in the world and the most difficult to 
practise. The life which the egoist and the coward love 
is not all of life ; it is but a small portion. They sub- 
stitute individual existence for existence in general, and 
in this individual existence they chose for themselves 
the narrowest and the frailest portion. Why should we 
be surprised if the end of such a love is nothingness 
and disgust ? But in loving that grand life of human- 
ity of which ours is a part, and, beyond the life of 
humanity, that life of which in its turn humanity is but 
a revelation, — in loving goodness, truth, and justice 
we go beyond our own individual existence, and become 

1 "Our highest good is not this life, but error is our greatest 
evil." 



176 YOUTH. 

heirs of a life more noble and more worthy of posses- 
sion. We cross the threshold of things transitory to 
set our feet on the everlasting. We may truly say that 
they who live most fully are they who best know sac- 
rifice, renunciation, and even contempt for life. The 
greatest truth of history is that humanity lives by the 
suffering, the sacrifice, and death of its worthiest off- 
spring. How true is the saying that they who live 
most in history are the dead ! Life is not the bread we 
eat, the air we breathe, the blood which flows in our' 
veins. All this is but the outer shell, — the fragile skiff 
which bears us to the realms of beauty, truth, justice, 
and strength. They who have reached these realms 
may well say Nunc dimittis. The same Preacher who 
found the world so old, considered that a living dog is 
better than a dead lion. In no book in the world can 
be found a more wonderfully apt motto for realism. 
Believe exactly the opposite, young friend, you who are 
just setting your feet on the ladder of life. A dead 
lion is better in itself alone than all the dogs living ! 
Fill your soul with this truth. You can then forge for 
yourself an ideal. 

The ideal is not a world of the imagination far off 
in inaccessible clouds, and so different from the real 
world that it is hopeless ever to attain it. The ideal is 
the living representation of the realities whose germs 
we bear. In the germs of plants and of animals we 
can recognize with the microscope certain delicate and 
hardly apparent forms, which mark the starting-point 
of future organisms. There is thus shown in man, such 



THE IDEAL. 177 

as he is, that which he ought to become if he obey his 
destiny and that volition which is the basis of life. To 
be alive in every part of our being, to realize the possi- 
bilities that are in us, to do all that we can, to be- 
come all that we are capable of becoming, — this is 
the aim of life. This is our share ; the rest is not in 
our hands. Fac tua, sua Deus faciei. 

The ideal of a human being should be modestly lim- 
ited to human nature. There is, we may be sure, a 
grandeur in this humility. If the seed cast in earth 
were conscious, it would dream, under the dark furrows, 
of a beautiful golden field where thousands of heads 
turned toward the sun ; if the tgg, inert as a stone, 
could imagine the latent forces within it, its ideal would 
be a free bird beating with its pinions the vast fields of 
azure. Let man then in his youth examine himself, 
know himself, come face to face with himself, and 
humanity will appear to him in all its sublime beauty. 
The road which he should follow will be indicated by his 
very nature, by his joys and sorrows, by all that he is 
and by all that he experiences. 

•# 

In an epoch like ours, which has suffered such objec- 
tive and subjective dispersion and division, we must 
aspire to harmony and unity. The lack of equilibrium 
is the great individual and social evil. To seek equi- 
librium within and without us should, then, be the 
watchword in a general orientation. 

Man is first of all an individual. To say that the in- 
dividual is nothing is as false as to say that it is every- 



1 78 YOUTH. 

thing. The strength with which each one of us is bound 
to his personal life shows us that individuality is not an 
illusion. At every instant of our life everything that we 
experience, pain or pleasure, tells us that we are alive, 
that we are an existence and a distinct existence. Noth- 
ing, therefore, is more justifiable than an anxiety for 
individual development. Each one of us in his youth 
seems to himself incomplete ; his traits and his stature 
are still to be attained. It is in this that man's educa- 
tion consists. 

Life, whether our outer or our inner life, is, in brief, 
made up of two parts, whose equilibrium is of the 
highest importance. These are receptivity and activity. 
Receptivity concerns the intelligence, the feelings, the 
influences of climate and place, and physical or moral 
nurture. It is the many-voiced instrument by which 
the world — all which is not ourselves — acts on us. 
Activity comprises movement, effort, work, every dis- 
play of energy, every manifestation of our will. It is the 
response to the action without, — our personal reaction, 
our contribution to the vast domain of life. 



What we have so far been able to prove, a little 
everywhere, is that we are leaving an epoch where, 
notwithstanding a colossal development of energy, 
man has developed in his receptivity rather than in his 
activity. Our education has culminated in instruction, 
and this in mental furniture rather than in culture and 
in development of originality. In practice, our search 
for happiness has aimed at the satisfaction which comes 



THE IDEAL. 179 

from impressions or recreations, whether of the mind 
or the body, rather than that which comes from action. 

This peculiarity must be widespread, because we 
have constant evidence of it. I read in a book of the 
Swedish poet Ibsen entitled Ligue de la Jeunesse : 
"The chief fault of our education is that we have 
planted our feet on what we know, instead of on that 
which is. We see to what this tends. We see, for 
instance, hundreds of capable men who lack equilibrium, 
whose sentiments and dispositions are entirely at vari- 
ance with their acts." 

We have relegated action and the will to the second 
place. Man is to be an intelligence, a brain, rather than 
a character. This shows itself in the psychological 
sciences, where all that relates to intelligence has been 
much more deeply examined than that which relates to 
the will. We are here face to face with a serious de- 
ficiency. Of what use are mind and intelligence when 
that regulator we call the will is absent ? The will is 
the helmsman of the ship ; when it wavers and is at a 
loss, fear shipwreck. Let youth pay special attention 
that the cultivation of personal energy, of activity, of 
physical and moral force, be an aim ardently pursued. 

There are as many forms of activity as forms of re- 
ceptivity. He who is introspective will have noticed 
that the world and men produce on him impressions of 
a physical, intellectual, moral, aesthetic, or religious 
nature, according as they act on this or that form of 
his impressibility. Though these different forms ought 
to have a common origin, it is impossible to confound 
them, or to substitute one for another without grave 



180 YOUTH. 

error. One is not a real man unless one accords their 
value to each of the elements of one's whole being. 
All our religious and our moral sense have been ne- 
glected and despised. We begin to see that they are a 
part of our normal receptivity as much as our aesthetic 
sense, for example. To neglect them is to mutilate it ; 
to deny them is to deny actual facts. The activity will 
feel their effects, receiving thus a new stimulus and new 
motives for action. The religious or the moral man 
obeys impulses of which they who neglect to cultivate in 
themselves the sense of the good and the sense of the 
divine are ignorant. I wish especially in what fol- 
lows to call attention to this, for it is likely to be for- 
gotten, and to insist on it, for it is of great importance. 
1 shall not tarry to speak of instruction, of scientific 
research, of study properly so called, of a curriculum, 
— in short, of all the ensemble of intellectual or aesthetic 
culture. These things have been spoken of by specialists. 
I will rather devote myself to the education of the will, 
and to subjects connected with its discipline and exercise, 
as well as their counterparts, idleness and pleasure, where 
I have some ideas of my own to express. And I shall 
reserve the place of honour for religious sentiment. 

Man is not an individual alone. The more he recog- 
nizes the innumerable ties that bind him to his ances- 
tors and his contemporaries, the more fully does he 
realize that he is part of a whole. That which he has 
and that which he is, he owes in great measure to others. 
He is like a cord in a net, distinct, but inseparable from 



THE IDEAL. 181 

the whole. Man is an integral part of society. Soli- 
darity environs and pervades him to such an extent that 
he sees nothing else when his eyes are opened to this 
great fact. Then follows initiation into social life, and 
he rises by degrees to family ties, friendship, love, and 
patriotism. At this stage only is he a man. 

We will devote the rest of this book to describing 
certain characteristics of this ideal, in order to show the 
richness of the life which aims at it. 



182 YOUTH. 



CHAPTER IV. 
ACTION. 

i. 2r>t0ctpiine* 



Esto vir. 



T HAVE so many reasons for wishing to preach action 
* to youth that I despair of enumerating them. This 
is the first : Words are discredited, Far be it from me 
to scorn them ; but the truth must be faced. Words, 
which are the chief bond among men, the great arm 
and the great tool of the mind, have lost their force, 
because they have been the instruments of falsehood. 
Every utterance is distrusted. Who can prove to us 
that it is sincere, or, if it is sincere, that it will continue 
so ? Facile jugglers of words and thoughts have so per- 
verted their meaning that we often talk to no purpose : 
words have lost their sense. We have heard so many 
systems and doctrines exposed that we are blase. We 
are no longer interested. How, then, can we reveal 
what is in us, diffuse our ideas, and exercise that apostle- 
ship of truth and of the ideal which is the noblest need 
of those who have something at heart ? I answer : By 
talking less and acting more. The Arabs despised a 
man who talked much, deducing from it that he thought 
little and was weak-minded. The man of weight with 



ACTION : DISCIPLINE. 1 83 

1hem was he who was sparing of words. With us talk 
is in high favour. To have said or written a clever 
thing is an honour. The chevaliers of the pen and 
tongue are on a par with those of the sword and tool, 
and are often ranked higher. We are too intelligent to 
take them au s^rieux. We see their blade of speech 
cutting a glittering circle in the air, but it does no exe- 
cution. How many good sayings have been simply 
wasted! We must, then, find some other mode of ex- 
pression. Charlatans have spoiled the trade for honest 
folk. We must put our soul less and less into books and 
addresses ; it runs the risk of being buried there. Let 
us lay our hands to the clay, let us take the spade, the 
hammer, the goad, the whip, and in place of tracing 
characters on paper, let us grave them on living hearts. 
Instead of crying, " Forward ! Fire ! " let us be ourselves 
the first in the attack. The chief who rushes to the as- 
sault has no need to consider his style or to quote 
Caesar ; a cry, a gesture suffices, and the contagion of 
his example brings his regiment on his heels. Imitate 
him. When you know something beautiful, good, just, 
or right, do not say it ; do it, and this, not for a day 
only, but with persistent patience. And when you see 
something iniquitous and bad, do not lose time in raising 
your hands to heaven and in arousing the indignation 
of others, using this, perhaps, afterward as a pretext to 
fold your arms. No, do you yourself seize the bull by 
the horns, and act personally. Help will come of itself. 
But before performing any such action we must be 
convinced of the necessity of discipline. Any force, of 
whatever kind, can be compared to fire and water. 



184 YOUTH. 

Whether it is good or bad, we cannot tell All depends 
on discipline. It can be a devastating scourge or a 
healthful power according as it is cowardly or domi- 
nant. It can spend itself in total waste or in fruitful 
results, according as it is unruly and blundering, or 
docile and kept in hand. 

Very different ideas are held about discipline; but 
they group themselves under two principal heads. 

On the one hand, by discipline is meant the sum 
total of the means by which life is subdued and put, as 
a passive instrument, under the control of the will of 
another. 

On the other hand, by discipline is meant the series 
of means by which we make life strong, mistress of 
itself, and by which we establish among its various 
forms of action an equilibrium which instead of bring- 
ing them into conflict harmonizes them. This second 
kind of discipline makes man his own master and 
governor, under the direction of that which is the aim 
of his whole life, and to which little by little he conse- 
crates his entire being. 

We do not propose to speak here of the first kind of 
discipline. It is not worthy of being a part of human 
education ; it is inhuman. It uses the same methods as 
are used in training horses or in teaching dogs to re- 
trieve. It is excellent for animals, but detestable for 
men. It is not discipline; it is breaking to harness. 
Such a system weakens the will, and makes man a 
thing. This kind of discipline, so far from realizing 
the aims of life, suppresses them. We must suffer and 
endure everything rather than accept it. 



ACTION : DISCIPLINE. 185 

But we must have a care not to reject discipline in 
general, as often happens under pretence of liberty and 
the dignity of man. He who has no check, no law, no 
reverence, who does not know obedience, and who does 
not recognize the authority of the laws which underlie 
everything, and which conscience should reflect, de- 
scends lower than the brute. When certain disorders 
break out, of which our times have furnished examples, 
we are astonished at our longing that men who live 
thus should receive summary treatment. There are 
days and hours when the wickedness and shame of 
man seem so frightful that we are tempted to appeal 
to violence to bring them to order, or at least to hinder 
them from publishing their ignominy. But that would 
be to fall from Charybdis into Scylla. 

Discipline, in the good sense of the word, has always 
been necessary and salutary. Neither in the State nor 
in the army nor in the school nor in the family, has 
anything permanent been established without it. Dis- 
cipline is to action what logic is to intelligence and 
what economy is to finance. It is necessary to have 
undergone it, and to be undergoing it unceasingly, if 
we would not fall into confusion, incoherence, and 
sterility. Unhappily, all the world do not seem to have 
thoroughly grasped this. There are many strong 
minds among youth who think they can dispense with 
details, and can reach the mountain top without the 
fatigue of climbing step by step. The lack of real dis- 
cipline is one of the scourges of the times. We have, 



186 YOUTH. 

on the one hand, license and lack of restraint ; on the 
other, the deadly rigidity of arbitrary systems. Few 
men know that voluntary obedience which is the mother 
of liberty. In it, nevertheless, is the secret of moral 
force. 

1 wish I could make every young man perceive the 
horrible state of depravity and misery into which those 
soft-hearted beings throw themselves who dread all 
manly control, who know not how to refuse nor resist 
anything, and who yield to the first wish, desire, or 
whim, or to the impulses and caprices of events and wills 
other than their own. I wish to make them perceive it, 
in order to awake the desire for a different life in the 
hearts of those who catch a glimpse of the abyss into 
which it is possible to fall. Perhaps it may make them 
desire salutary severity. 

For though this severity seems formidable, its results 
are so beautiful. Action is such a good that we must 
prefer the lash of the whip which awakes it, to the 
caress which puts it to sleep. In spite of all, we appre- 
ciate its grandeur. Even weak, debased minds have a 
secret admiration for it. He who is in control of him- 
self is like a lighthouse in the moral world. 

Nothing so instantly recommends itself and is so im- 
posing as strength of soul. When it passes, we feel that 
royalty has passed by, and something in the depths of 
our nature makes us wish to possess this royalty. The 
spectacle of debased wills fills us with disgust for 
others and ourselves. There are days and hours when 
the appreciation of universal worthlessness crushes us. 
The spectacle of virility, on the contrary, is consoling. 



ACTION : DISCIPLINE. 187 

It is enough for its pure ray to have once shone into 
our conscience, for us never to forget it. " Many a 
day and under many a circumstance have I seen a 
man at work, — at some labour of courage, of pity, 
of truth, — and I have thought him so beautiful that I 
would have given everything to resemble him." How 
I wish that many of the youth of our day thought 
thus ! Just as we delight to see a child sprightly, enter- 
prising, contemptuous of pain, so we love to meet a 
young man whose ideal is to be strong and to fear 
nothing but a mean action. Such a one would surely 
wish discipline as a means of realizing his noble as- 
pirations, and he would never despise its petty details. 
For it is with them that we must begin. Be sure of 
this, — that action, like all man's faculties, is sub- 
ordinate to the laws of development. It may be culti- 
vated like the intelligence, and, like it, rise from simple 
things to the most difficult. The progressive force of 
action has a great analogy in the school of war. The 
soldier is a man of discipline who knows how to endure 
and to fight, and is made ready by a series of exer- 
cises. Edgar Quinet has said that war is made up of 
two parts, — the human and the divine. The human 
part is the sum total of the material mechanism ; the 
divine is the spirit that actuates the soldiers, and the 
cause for which they fight. In the noble battle for which 
man prepares himself it is the same. The mechanism 
here is the ensemble of methods by which we make 
supple and strong his weapon the will. From these 
methods we can deduce a single rule : In the details of 
life make it your aim to be active rather than passive. 



188 YOUTH. 

Eating, drinking, sleeping, amusing oneself, working, — 
everything that one undertakes, can be done passively. 
We can be in bed because we ought to be there and 
because we need rest ; we can also be there because we 
are simply lazy. Every one knows this. It is the same 
with all the acts of life, and nothing is more easily 
noticed. 

Work, which seems to be action par excellence, can 
have a passive character which takes away nearly all its 
moral value. To work because one is forced by hun- 
ger or thirst is to be passive. It is our hunger, our thirst, 
which is the spring of action, and we only follow its 
suggestion. 

Life demands the conquering in detail of the inev- 
itable and of outside influences ; of the desires, the appe- 
tites, the passions, and the force of inertia which is in 
every one of us. 

How many human beings have lived and died with- 
out ever suspecting that the great business of human 
life is to live life, and not to allow themselves to be 
carried along and dominated by it ! These are the things 
that must be taught young soldiers who wish to enter 
this school of war, — they must seize on life, they must 
keep a watch on it, and must strive to gain ground 
little by little on this passiveness which surprises and 
binds us, in spite of ourselves, when the guard within 
is sleeping. A good way to bring about that vigilant 
action which makes our life come little by little under 
the power of our reflective will is to strengthen it, gen- 
erally, by every kind of virile exercise. Nothing is so 
effective in hardening it as a little trouble, privation, and 



ACTION : DISCIPLINE. 189 

even suffering. As a rule, strong characters have lived 
in the very midst of the struggles and the difficulties of 
life. Events have furnished them a severe and salutary 
school. Let us follow the hint life gives us, and be hard 
on ourselves. Let us seek fatigue, exertion, all that 
stretches the muscles and solidifies the bones, all that 
makes more red the blood, all that exercises patience 
and endurance of whatever nature it may be. How 
one comes, under this regime, little by little and through 
daily practice, to lifting weights which inert hands can- 
not even move ! Bodily vigour is one of the conditions 
of moral vigour. Montaigne has said : " To strengthen 
the soul w r e must strengthen the muscles. " To him 
who aspires to self-government the sensation of physi- 
cal weakness should be insupportable. He should feel 
the necessity of cherishing everything that is in him, 
body and mind alike, of developing it by constant care, 
and of burnishing it every day, as one does a precious 
weapon, that rust and dust may not tarnish it. When 
by reason of these masculine exercises man has become 
master of himself, as a good rider is of his steed, the 
human conditions of the struggle will have been ful- 
filled. He will then devote his attention to the di- 
vine, — to knowing the spirit which should animate 
him and the banner under which h < .rries arms in the 
fight. The important t 1 - ng is that he shall serve but one 
master. That master is the will, which underlies every- 
thing. We assist it when we are actuated by the prin- 
ciples which it points out to us in the life of humanity. 
To enlarge life and to better it ; to make it just, strong, 
pure, healthful, joyous ; to love it and prove our love 



190 YOUTH. 

by serving it, — that is his aim. But when one loves life 
in its divine essence and its integrity, must one not hate 
many things ? This we will say : the result of disci- 
pline should be to form, to make flexible, and to reclaim 
our whole nature in such fashion that with all its ener- 
gies it places itself, like a docile and valiant sword, at 
the service of the life it should love, to oppose and at- 
tack all the enemies it should hate, without truce and 
without mercy. Hatred of evil is the indispensable 
complement of the love of life. He who knows not 
how to hate, knows not how to love. He who said, 
" I love/' and said it truly, said with the same breath, " I 
hate." These beautiful and mighty passions are the 
backbone of struggles. All the great friends of man 
have known them, because they are as enduring as the 
rocks on which one builds one's house or breaks one's 
head. 

To love and hate with all that one is and all that one 
has, even to the point of sacrifice and death, is what 
constitutes the highest degree of virile discipline. Will- 
ing obedience, from humble beginnings and faithfulness 
in little things, has now become the highest liberty and 
the loftiest and purest pleasure. 

A fig for cowardly and passive enjoyment which, 
after all, makes us effeminate, and leaves us unarmed 
and exposed to even the smallest attack ! What a 
wretched happiness is this ! True happiness is in action, 
in struggling. Oh, to live, to strive, to suffer, for 
what one loves and worships, — for justice, liberty, coun- 
try ; for those who are outraged and oppressed ! Oh, 
to be a manly heart, a rampart, as the Greeks had it, 



ACTION: WORK. 191 

a breastwork that cannot be taken ; to be able to say 
No as firmly as Yes, to have a word that can be de- 
pended on as surely as the sun-rising, to fall into step 
with the immortal phalanx who march to humanity's 
field of honour in a blaze of glory ! Young friend, 
you who read this page, do you feel your blood on fire 
as you picture to yourself such a life ? It can be yours ; 
but to reach it you must have the courage and patience 
to be trained as by a master of fence. 

2. Mork. 

Work is the peaceful and continuous form of 
action. Some one has said : " Work is life, idle- 
ness is death." If this be true, and I do not doubt 
it, death is preying upon us. " What ! " some will 
say, " do you think we do not work enough ? Others 
think we work too much." Let us explain. No cen- 
tury has worked as this one ; but who has done the 
work ? A few only, For one inventor, worn out by 
researches and vigils, how many are there who take 
their ease and profit by his labour ! In business the 
work everywhere falls on certain shoulders. Others 
reap advantage without a thought for those who bear 
the burden of the day. The American Bellamy has 
happily compared life to a stage-coach. A part of man- 
kind is harnessed to it, and drags the rest, who dis- 
pute for places inside. Work is misunderstood and, 
indeed, despised by too many persons. It is every- 
where considered as a drudgery to which one submits 
to gain one's bread. He who has bread, has no need to 



192 YOUTH. 

work ; he who has not, works from necessity. Both 
of them act from unworthy motives. I recognize two 
classes of idlers, — those who are lazy, and those who 
grumble at their tasks. We must, then, rehabilitate 
work. How shall it be done ? By all of us working 
without exception. Granted that work is a law of life, 
we cannot admit that any one, under any pretext, shall 
be exempt. Whoever does not work is doomed, by the 
very spirit of this supreme law, to perish. He perishes 
from internal atrophy, destroyed by his imprisoned 
energy which turns to poison. All that does not rouse, 
does not set him to work, rusts and taints him. You 
have no work, young man ? That is enough ! I would 
rather hear that you had the cholera, because that kills 
and does not contaminate the body. The disease of 
laziness which is preying on you destroys the whole 
man. You are not only infected yourself, you become 
a centre of infection. In a well-organized society, the 
man stricken with your disease should be condemned 
to death, — a death of public shame, a death by starva- 
tion. There is no place, in a world under the rule of 
labour and solidarity, for him who has bread in abun- 
dance and lives idly on the work of others, or for him 
who has no bread but is lazy and begs or steals it, no 
matter how. He falls from the tree like the dead leaf. 

Let us who love work and understand how good 
and salutary it is, who realize that it is a great deliverer 
and a great peacemaker, never conceal it. It is one of 
the elegances of this age of labour to do so. In our 
cities the shop-windows are dazzling to see, the factories 
are out of sight. We have results, but not the toil that 



ACTION: WORK. 193 

produced them. How pernicious this for youth and for 
every one ! Not to know the pains things have cost — 
not to see the pale little hand which made this fine lace, 
and the grimy fist which forged this gearing and these 
machines — is to be led into error and to be liable to in- 
justice. We shall come to believe that things almost 
make themselves. Let us show our work ; it is a social 
necessity, a homage to truth. Let us do more ; let us 
honour it in our own person, that youth may honour it 
the more. We can never exalt it enough. Do not 
hide your hands when they show signs of toil ; it would 
be cowardly. See how the evil is spreading ! Do not 
add to its shamelessness your false shame. Why brush 
away so carefully this dust of labour ? It honours you. 
Never is the soldier finer than when he is black with 
smoke. What is the full dress of parade to the wild 
disorder of battle ? Old Diogenes, whom no one under- 
stands and whom the epithet " cynic " describes so badly, 
was a great practical philosopher and instructor. He 
taught the young students who came to him for advice, 
among other things, to oppose a stupid public prejudice 
by going about with burdens, tools, and other imple- 
ments of labour. Why is he not among us still to 
teach these rude precepts to certain young lordlings, who 
are little troubled at being seen in bad company, but 
would blush to be caught at some unpretending and 
honourable work ? 

Most absurd habits and the falsest ideas are every 
day taught our youth of both sexes by this way of 
concealing work. You excuse yourself, madame, when 
I surprise you with your hands in the dough, or busy 



194 YOUTH. 

in the care of your children. Your embarrassment is 
complimentary neither to yourself nor to me. Shall we 
be of those who despise labour ? What can be better 
than to cook, or to keep house, or to care for children ? 
A mother is never so touching as when at her post. 
What a beautiful example she offers youth ! We must 
not exaggerate, indeed ; we must not deliberately blacken 
our hands and face. Virtue itself is estimable only 
through its tact and its discretion. But we understand 
one another, do we not ? We hea r it often said, now- 
adays, that young people do not wish to work ; and 
those who say it are the direct authors of the inertia 
they complain of. In making themselves their children's 
servants and sparing them all exertion, have they not 
themselves taught them idleness ? 

Now that we are speaking of manual labour, let us 
devote special attention to this much neglected form of 
activity. I recognize in its rehabilitation one of those 
curative agents which is to redeem our epoch. First 
and foremost, that equilibrium, lost by the exaggeration 
of intellectual speculations and by the exasperation of 
our receptive faculties, will be restored by an impetus 
in the direction of muscular activity. Muscular activity 
is a tonic; it relieves the mental strain, and brings 
about a certain equipoise in overworked bodies. From 
this point of view manual labour is a grand curative 
agent. It enriches the blood, increases the energy, 
keeps up good humour when there is any, and brings 
it back if it has taken flight. We live more gayly and 
more broadly when the body has its normal activity, 
and our ideas, far from being lost, are increased. 



ACTION: WORK. 195 

Sedentary study enervates and impairs our impressions 
and our ideas, diminishes the clearness of our concep- 
tions, and leads to exaggerations and eccentricities. We 
cannot with impunity disregard the basis of life. We 
hold the pen better, and we are better fitted for work 
after we have planed, sawed, filed, and hammered, be- 
cause nothing makes the brain so active and is such an 
originator of ideas as moderate physical exercise. Be- 
sides, in bringing us nearer real life, nearer the things 
which one sees and touches, and which are essentially 
practical, it furnishes in the depths of our being a valu- 
able ballast which prevents our ideas from straying and 
being lost in space. How many politicians would have 
escaped the danger of hollow principles and the pas- 
sion for useless legislation, had they learned through 
work the practical needs of the people ? 

But among all varieties of manual labour there is 
none to be compared, in its wonderful influence, with 
work in the fields. It is one of the least within the 
reach of students, except in vacations. Happy then is 
he who can fly to the fields, who owns a bit of well- 
known land, or has some relative or friend from whom 
he can ask initiation into country secrets. There is a 
spirit of the fields which lives in the furrows and in 
the harvests, in the hedges and in the meadows, — a 
spirit beneficent, full of repose, of sweet teachings, 
and of virile enthusiasm. Virgil understood it. Anti- 
quity is impregnated with it. But it demands of each 
one his share of effort before it will reveal itself. 
Nature speaks to those who walk abroad, no doubt, for 
she is kind to all ; but there are things she says to those 



196 YOUTH. 

only who cultivate and study her, — those, in a word, who 
love her. I consider it the greatest misfortune for any 
grade of society to consummate a divorce from the soil, 
and to consider it as, unhappily, it is considered in our 
great cities in the midst of an artificial life, — so much 
mud. How true is the old myth of the giant Antaeus 
regaining his strength every time he touched his mother 
earth, and only conquered when his adversary tore him 
violently from it. We must go back to the soil to gain 
renewed strength from its vigorous heart. Let tired 
youth, worn out with study, anasmic and enervated by 
the great city, take the key of the fields. Speak to the 
peasant; better yet, ask him for work. Drive his 
plough ; handle his pick, his scythe. In a few days you 
will be astonished at the number of new things you 
have discovered. You will have learned the difficulty 
of raising the grain so many people eat unthankf ully , and 
you will not be able thereafter to touch it without emo- 
tion, remembering that man has contributed his labour, 
and God his sun. He who ploughs the earth and sows 
the seed is the true symbol of humanity which sows 
and trusts. By the side of the labourer, should life have 
seemed to you unreal and full of vanity, you will say 
under your breath with the poet, — 

On sent a quel point il doit ctoire 
A lafuite utile des jours. 1 

You will realize dimly the sacredness of labour and 

1 " We feel how deeply we must believe 
In the useful flight of the days." 



ACTION : WORK. 197 

the serious depths of life, and you will see the last rays 
of an October sun, — 

Elargissant jusqiCaux etoiles 
Le geste auguste du semeur ! 1 

Do this, young man ! Believe me, I have tried it be- 
fore advising it. I have cut more than one field of oats 
and wheat, cradled for long hours under the August sky 
to the slow cadence of the blade as it swung to and fro, 
laying low at every stroke the heavy yellow heads. I 
have heard the quail whistle in the distant fields be- 
yond the golden waves of wheat and the woods that 
looked blue above the vines. I have thought of the 
clamours of mankind, of the oven-like cities, of the 
problems which perplex the age, and my insight has 
grown clearer. Yes, I am positive that one of the great 
curatives of our evils, our maladies social, moral, and 
intellectual, would be a return to the soil, a rehabilitation 
of the work of the fields. I cannot refrain from citing 
here a page from my friend T. Fallot's LUes d'un rural, 
and I commend them to young men in general, but 
especially to those whom an erroneous conception of 
life has induced to abandon the cultivation of their 
lands, and thus set a baleful example : — 

11 The educated classes should set the fashion of a 
return to the country and to the soil. They have done 
the mischief ; they should repair it. 

" Is it not they who taught the peasant the fetichism 
of the city, and all that goes with it,- — cheap goods 

1 " Exalting even to the stars 

The august gesture of the sower." 



198 YOUTH. 

and cheap ideas ? Is it not they who have spread the cult 
of money got without labour, the thirst for corrupting 
pleasures which they taste there, and all the rest ? 

" After having taken away from the peasant respect 
for the soil and the labour which tills it, it will not be 
easy to restore this ; nevertheless, cost what it may, he 
must be made to understand that there is no existence 
preferable to his. Otherwise the depletion of the coun- 
try districts will continue. 

" Arguments take slight hold of the agriculturist ; 
example alone makes him reflect. The day he sees 
families in easy circumstances and educated men living 
and working beside him, Jacques Bonhomme will come 
to understand that he has been thoroughly deceived in 
the assurance that there are more gold pieces to be got 
in the city than there are stones in his vineyard, and, 
roused by this discovery, he will set joyfully to work 
to open his soil to God's free sun and make it produce 
its fruits. 

" Let me not be misunderstood : it is neither an act of 
sacrifice nor a crusade that I am preaching to educated 
men ; it is a perfectly reasonable undertaking, from 
which they will be the first to benefit. 

" Though the worthy corporation of pharmacists 
should draw up prescription after prescription, and com- 
pound pill after pill, they would never find a restorative 
like that which tilling the soil offers man." 

The ancients were wiser than we in apprenticing their 
children to some handicraft, whatever might be their 
social condition. This kind of practical education is 
the indispensable complement of all virile culture. 



ACTION: WORK. 199 

Manual labour, in my opinion, has another advantage 
besides those 1 have mentioned. It is a means of bring- 
ing the different classes of society together. So long 
as work is despised by the educated and well-to-do of a 
nation, it is a source of misunderstanding and ill-feeling. 
Notwithstanding all the protestations and all the testi- 
monials in honour of those we call workers, they be- 
lieve that their work is, after all, a slavery, to which no 
one would willingly submit. It is but a step from this 
to hatred of manual labour. The mental work which 
is usually done under outward circumstances of nicety 
and comfort, the people readily depreciate, or see in it 
only an agreeable pastime or idleness in disguise. It is 
not easy for him who bears the heat of the sun, the 
inclemencies of the weather, or the foul air of the 
mines, to believe that one can suffer, struggle, be weary, 
carry heavy burdens, and climb rugged paths, while 
sitting quietly in a chair in the shade. 

The misunderstandings which result from this state 
of things are grave obstacles to social progress. To 
lessen them the educated classes must familiarize them- 
selves with the work of the other classes, and take the 
first steps toward the rehabilitation of the humbler forms 
of labour. 

Work, at the moment, has become simply a means 
of procuring food, and even pleasure, luxury, or repu- 
tation. We have made it play a subordinate part. 
Beautiful in its freedom like most human forces, it has 
acquired in slavery a succession of deformities. Like 
love and religion it is unrecognizable, because it has 
degenerated. We know work hardly otherwise than as 



200 YOUTH. 

a commodity. Even mental work is undervalued and 
for sale. Who remembers now that labour is one of 
the purest sources of happiness, and that it is never so 
holy as when it is disinterested. Of all the means man 
has to bring himself in touch with the bases of things, 
■ — truth, justice, all that is venerable and permanent, — ■ 
there is none so good as labour. To establish between 
ourselves and that great mystery, life, the contact which 
shall communicate the vivifying electric shock, it seems 
as if we must lay our hands to some useful tool. It is 
in toiling, in losing himself in his loved work, that man 
feels himself akin to the Eternal Worker. Work is the 
great liberator, the peacemaker, the consoler par excel- 
lence ; but to know it fully we must remember that it 
sometimes calls itself suffering. 

3. buffering* 

A word is worth no more to jugglers with words 
than a sou is to a speculator. Both appropriate the re- 
sult of others' labours by the wholesale. But he who 
gains his money by the sweat of his brow knows its 
true value ; he sees what it costs. It is the same with 
words. What has not their making cost, — these words 
which one man parades like so many tinsel adornments, 
and which are as great an embarrassment to another as 
his uniform is to a performing dog ? Words are long 
histories condensed ; they are the whole flora of life 
and thought grouped in a single bouquet. Take this 
word labor, which means both work and suffering. It 
is a whole system of philosophy and of morality. It 



ACTION: SUFFERING. 201 

unites in one and the same thought the creative activity 
of man, and that law of toil and suffering to which 
we are all subject. Does not the word indicate that 
suffering is wedded to toil in the long, slow evolution of 
mankind, and that this evolution is like childbirth, a 
dolorous travail. It is with this that a young man 
should be thoroughly impressed, that he may form a 
correct idea of suffering, and that he may not only 
seek that form of activity which gives happiness and 
pleasure and which brightens one's whole being with 
the delight of creating, but may also accept laborious 
effort and transform into activity, in the free accepta- 
tion of the word, even passive suffering. 

Man rebels at suffering and pain. His nature de- 
mands that he should. Pain preserves him by warning 
him. When he goes astray, it springs up to tell him of 
it. It is, then, natural that we should seek that which 
enlarges life and adds to its enjoyments, and that we 
should shun that which narrows it and makes it suffer. 
Even for this are we not indebted to pain ? 

L'homme est un apprenti, la douleur est son mattre ; 
Et nul ne se connait avant d 'avoir souffert. 1 

Pain does not alone fill for us the negative office of 
one who cries " Beware " in dangerous places ; it makes 
us mindful of ourselves, it reveals us to ourselves. 
How many things a man sees clearly only through 
tears ? And what tears are more sincere, more touch- 

1 Man is an apprentice, pain is his master ; 
And no one knows himself till he has suffered. 

A. DE Ml'SSET. 



202 YOUTH. 

ing, than those of youth ? When its fresh, generous, 
susceptible heart comes into contact with rough and 
often pitiless life, how it suffers ! What an experience 
it goes through ! The youth of this harsh and positive 
age has known it. We say to it : Love it, love this 
suffering which comes from the contact of life with 
your ideal. Take it into your inmost soul, and con- 
sider its slightest whisper. Wherever in the world 
you feel yourself bruised, wounded in some deep and 
true sentiment, opposed in some legitimate aspiration, | 
have the courage of your suffering. Let it be the cry 
of alarm which arouses you to resistance, to combat, to 
a search for something better. You will then know 
pain as a deliverer. It forges arms from its chains. 
Through this holy grief of youth, oppressed and suf- 
fering from the injustice which the stronger inflict upon 
the weaker, learn to love justice better. Do not act 
like the new boys at certain schools who, when they are 
harassed by their elders, resolve to harass, in their turn, 
their juniors. Let sorrow teach you pity, and draw you 
nearer those who suffer and are distressed, — the weak, 
the people, all who are forgotten. Then it will unveil 
grand and hidden things to you. But it will do more 
for you still. It will bring you into touch with the 
dead, as it has with the living. The great sufferings 
of history will no longer be unintelligible to you. You 
will be in communication, through sacrifice and sorrow, 
with those who have lived before you. Humanity, which 
they who know it not and do nothing for it despise, 
will seem to you beautiful because of all it has suffered, 
and you will love it the more. You will cling to it, as 



ACTION : SUFFERING. 203 

children cling to their mothers, in tears, and it will 
teach you the secret of power, of hope, of faith, which 
is revealed in the sanctuary of great sorrows. Do not 
fear that your youth will lose its gayety. Suffering, 
like work, strengthens the capacity for happiness. It 
sees on the steep paths which it makes you climb, sweet 
smiling flowers which the profane have never known. 

Suffering is, besides, a spur, a powerful spring of 
action. Too easy an existence enervates ; an effeminate 
youth is a bad preparation for life. It is a good thing 
to bear the yoke when one is young. The burden of 
happy days is very heavy to withstand before experi- 
ence comes to our aid. Let us rather desire a little 
trouble ; it is more salutary. It hardens the will, toughens 
the skin, and prepares for liberty. Then it is more 
manly, more in conformity with what a young man 
should wish, — that is, a being who is young and who 
wishes to become a man. Take the best men of the 
present and of the past. They have all endured hard- 
ship, and they boast of it. After all, these things are 
interesting to tell in after days. Meminisse jirc.it. 
Doubtless a good bed and a good table are not to be 
despised. Let us not despise anything ; let us rather 
improve every opportunity for enjoyment. But these 
are not Ahe things that grave themselves most deeply in 
our memory. We recall more willingly the days 
when we have been hungry and have slept on a hard 
bed, even perhaps beneath the stars. I do not wish 
any one to undergo hunger or cold, — in short, to 



204 YOUTH. 

suffer ; but a little trouble and hardship are as salt for 
youth. 

This is why we should be thankful if we were born 
in modest circumstances, and, when this is not the case, 
should seek simplicity in tastes and needs. I could wish 
that there were a greater number of rich young men 
enamoured of labour, exertion, privation, of voluntary 
poverty even ; and fewer young men of humble origin 
ashamed of their lot and of their condition, — always 
sedulous to appear better off than they are, and spend- 
ing on their superfluities what their parents actually 
need. 

In conclusion, I consider that suffering is a friend, 
that we must pay it royal honours, that we must be 
thoroughly persuaded that without it humanity would 
have remained in barbarism, and that the highest pro- 
gress is due to it. 

Every young man with a heart should respect it, 
should venerate it above no matter what greatness, 
should love it, and should kiss its blood-stained foot- 
steps in the dust. 

4. speDttatton anJ) l&est* 

They who are thinking of leaving well-worn paths 
must create for themselves a strong inner life. To rec- 
ognize constantly a right and impartial line of action, 
they must escape from time to time from outside anx- 
ieties, from the sway of tendencies and parties, and 
from the discordant clamour which rends the air about 
them. I claim a large share of the life of our youth 



ACTION : MEDITATION AND REST. 205 

for meditation. Where to find it is the question. The 
other day in walking through one of those fair-grounds 
where, with the perfected apparatus of modem civili- 
zation, such a lovely uproar is created, I saw this : A 
young man, with curly locks and fine features, a member 
doubtless of some family of strollers, who had re- 
turned to the paternal van for his vacation, was sitting 
on a camp-stool, his elbows on his knees, his thumbs in 
his ears, his eyes deep in a book. At his right a juggler 
wa£ shouting, at his left a man was playing a trombone, 
a big drum was beating its loudest, a number of organs 
were playing different airs at the same time, accompa- 
nied by the deafening notes of calliopes. Dogs were 
barking ; passers-by were singing, shouting, quarrelling ; 
the young man alone was imperturbable. I watched 
him for a long time. He seemed to me at the moment 
a symbol. If we wish to collect our thoughts, nowa- 
days, we must do as he did. Let us imitate this brave 
lad, who by force of will created silence in the midst of 
uproar. We must acknowledge that his power of con- 
centration is not given to every one. Still we can per- 
haps acquire it, if we realize the value of meditation. 
But, as a rule, we dread it rather than seek it. Every 
man as he leaves his lecture, his office, his laboratory, 
his workshop, thinks it his duty to take measures 
against the danger he runs in remaining tete-a-tete with 
himself. 

Those who heard John the Baptist, moved by his 
words, demanded of him, " What shall we do to escape 
the wrath to come ? " Their question reminds me by 
analogy of that of a host of our contemporaries : " What 



206 YOUTH. 

shall we do, what shall we take up, to escape ourselves ? " 
Are they afraid of being in bad company, when they 
are with their own selves alone? One would say so. 
They prefer the least interesting and the most harmful 
companions to solitude. Some would rather pay to be 
bored in a crowd, than to be bored by themselves with- 
out expense. Nothing is more interesting than to notice 
all the contrivances, all the ingenious trickery made use 
of in this struggle against meditation. We insure our- 
selves against it as against hail or fire. Is not the sou 
the poor man spends for a paper, of which he reads 
only the serial, an insurance premium ? There are prov- 
ident people, as you know, who always carry salts with 
them in case of indisposition. There are some even 
who carry a whole pharmacy : it is more prudent. 
For a different purpose, others have always about them 
a newspaper, a novel, a game of cards or solitaire. As 
soon as there is an instant when they run the risk of 
reflection or introspection, quick ! out comes their 
preventive. They read the financial bulletin or some 
chance article, or work out a game of solitaire, — the 
danger is averted ; and what a danger ! — they barely 
escaped reflection. It is the fear of introspection car- 
ried to absurdity. 

The result is that many men become strangers to 
themselves. All the intensity of life is on the surface. 
Channing said : " Multitudes of men live and die as 
complete strangers to themselves as are to us lands 
which are barely known by name, and which no 
human foot has trod." At certain stages of history 
meditation in solitude has made believers lose their con- 



ACTION : MEDITATION AND REST. 207 

nedion with the world, because it has turned their at- 
tention entirely to introspection. What is now lost is 
the way into our own hearts. We have been very 
wrong to neglect this way. We hear in the silence of 
its forgotten windings strong, sweet voices to which our 
ears had grown unused. 

The solitude from which we fly is a good thing, and 
meditation is salutary. There must be halting-places 
in life. Sit thou silent, says Isaiah ; and it is wise 
often so to do. 

You will say that what I propose is in contra- 
diction with the action which I showed to be one of 
the essential characteristics of the new ideal. Not at 
all. The source of rational and assured action is in 
meditation. 

In what does the energy of the will and the strength 
and security of conscience consist ? In the ability to 
be self-reliant, to resist outside encrbachments, and to 
strengthen oneself against them by an active inner life. 
To give oneself to reflection is not to fly the world and 
grow effeminate in unwholesome isolation or in sterile 
contemplation of self. If this were so. we would say 
Vx soli ! To give oneself to reflection is to forge and 
furbish arms, that we may wear them in battle with re- 
newed strength. It is to fall back a step that we may 
leap further forward. 

Accompanying all great outward activity must be an 
intense inner life. Wherever this is lacking, activity 

.enerates into agitation. Retirement, solitude, the 
desert, have played their role in all fruitful lives. 

Wherever there rises in the world a voice that can 



208 YOUTH. 

awake response, it comes from a mouth that knows how 
to be silent. The hidden source of moving words and 
heroic acts is in the soul's great silences. All our ener- 
gies concentrate and make ready in meditation, and 
when the time comes, break forth with active enthu- • 
siasm. We might say that the mind, like the earth, 
has its long winters when all is still and asleep, its 
springtimes with awaking and growth, and then its 
harvests. There is here a law which one cannot oppose 
without running against the impossible. It is true of 
the study and digestion of another's knowledge which 
must sink in and be assimilated. It is true, above all, of 
individual production. All mental workers should re- 
member it, if they would not create ephemera without 
ability or force. The curse of avocations which com- 
pel men to write or speak at a fixed time, is that they 
create artificial production. The younger one is, the 
worse this is for him. When we are too hard pressed, 
we no longer work ; we fabricate. I would always urge 
a young man who is concerned for his individuality 
to produce without haste. He had better let his ink 
dry and his pen rust than use them to lay immature 
thoughts before the world. The same is true of actions. 
Outward action must not precede inner action. All 
that is premature is false and unenduring. Whence 
come the especial virtue, the immortal beauty, of those 
classic masterpieces which we know as poesy, painting, 
or sculpture ? In good measure from the patient travail 
of a work born in due season, without feverishness or 
artificial aid. How much poor work we do, because we 
do not appreciate the strength of meditation, nor the 



ACTION : MEDITATION AND REST. 209 

secret of taking time to draw the bow to its utmost, 
that the arrow may fly farther ! 

Meditation is still further a force, because it assures 
the unity of life. Is it a rider who goes whither his 
horse wills ? No ; it is not. Those who cannot relive 
their past, review it, and establish a unity of aspirations, 
are like those aimless riders who let themselves be car- 
ried here or there at the caprice of their steed. Without 
knowing it, they obey a thousand outside impressions, 
and are swayed by events. They are not individuali- 
ties ; they are results. 

To escape this unworthy servitude, wherein so many 
men are induced to undo one day what they did the 
day before, and to lose all the fruits of life, there is but 
one way, — it is meditation. Youth must review its 
childhood ; man his youth. The noblest among us, both 
of youth and of ripe age, are they who do this. What 
a beautiful life is that in which, despite all outside 
changes, there is formed little by little in the heart a 
bond of confidence between its different periods ; where 
youth has retained naivete, middle age exaltation and 
enthusiam, old age confidence and serenity, and where 
these lives summed up in one unite in saying, " We 
will so continue." A wretched existence, on the other 
hand, is that where we see ourselves wandering through 
a dead past like a stranger, who says, sings, and loves 
things outside our comprehension. Woe to the people 
who forget their history, the men who forget their 
past! 

14 



210 YOUTH. 

King Ahasuerus had no sooner begun to hear the re- 
cital of his reign than he found many wrongs to right. 
Let us allow that impartial chronicler whom we call 
conscience to decipher from the tablets of vanished 
days what we then were, what we have suffered, 
accomplished, or neglected. Let us treat with respect 
that inner voice which cries to us with so much 
insistence and authority, Sta, viator! 

Stop, pilgrim ! halt, turn thy thoughts inward ! 
Whether they make thee weep or smile, they are alike 
salutary. We always rise from meditation stronger and 
better, because more true to ourselves. A life without 
remembrance is a broken chain. The most valuable 
part of itself is lost ; it is worthless. Of what use to 
labour, to struggle, to run and hurry, if we drop all into 
a gulf of oblivion. Sta, viator ! Do not say you are 
in haste. Of what use is haste, when it leads to an 
abyss ? He who does not draw off his moral balance- 
sheet nor ielive his life, who performs his tasks and 
goes his way forgetting them as stupid birds forget 
their eggs in the sand, runs to certain ruin. When he 
expects it least, he will break his head against some 
rock of his own planting. No ; there is neither satis- 
factory excuse nor pretext, nor is there any possible 
good reason to allege against the moral necessity of 
pausing and interrogating our conscience. 

The same necessity exists for him who wishes an 
intellectual life of any value. If you do not wish 
your intelligence to degenerate into incoherence, into 



action: meditation and rest. 211 

the most improbable medley of contrarieties, you must 
sometimes stop, examine what you have done, and test 
its soundness. In a word, it is imperative to escape 
from outside clamour and from the suggestion of 
others' thoughts, to return to the unfashionable habit 
of thinking for oneself. Otherwise there will soon 
remain, as the fruit of an ill-ordered intellectual life, 
only a practically sterile existence. Actions destroy one 
another, like thoughts. 

What shall we say of religious belief ? Can we still 
give that name to the bizarre and heterogeneous collec- 
tion of fragments, new and old, of every kind, which 
so often constitute the structure of our religious con- 
ceptions ? Heedlessness alone seems to have designed 
this tottering edifice, this shelter which is to protect 
us. Here, more than anywhere, must there be silence 
and reflection. Young believers, ask yourselves what 
you believe, and if you really and personally believe it. 
Is your faith a living *>ne, a part of your very blood and 
substance, or is it only an amalgamation of unrelated 
principles which encumber your inner life ? It is so 
hard to see one's most absolute beliefs resolve into 
smoke, and one's most ardent assurances give place at 
the critical moment to fear and uncertainty. To avoid 
the frightful solitude in those supreme encounters where 
borrowed beliefs fall into dust at the shock of trial, we 
must often withdraw into silence. There, in the pres- 
ence of God alone and of reality, faith purities and 
strengthens itself, as it becomes more simple and more 
true. It brushes aside the dross which routine and 



212 YOUTH. 

man's fears mingle with it for our undoing, and we 
leave that austere school where holy truth disciplines us, 
with a firmer heart. 

I will not stop at urging meditation, 1 will preach also 
rest. Do not laugh. If there are those who loaf too 
much, there are also those who do not loaf enough. 
Nothing is gained by working too hard. Close the 
book, put out the lamp, 

Et jam tempus equum fumantia solvere colla. 

You have no time to lose, you say ? To rest is to 
gain time, not to lose it. You will work much better 
after it. There is a limit to all things : overwork ends 
in stupefaction. I appeal to all those who have passed 
examinations in evidence. For my part, I am in favour 
of rest. 

On a summer's day when, as a tourist, one has 
tramped in the blazing sunshine over long dusty high- 
ways and up steep paths where stones have hurt the 
feet, how good it is to throw down the pack and staff, 
and sit in the shade ! This is the most enjoyable part 
of these excursions. "The thought of a laggard this," 
you will exclaim, " the precepts of him who amid the 
beauties of Nature prefers a mossy pillow, and will- 
ingly leaves to others the glory of great exertion and 
painful climbs. It recalls the famous Suave mari 
magno of Lucretius." Not the least in the world. 
The thought is inspired by necessity itself, by the laws 
inherent in human affairs. He who knows not how 
to halt, knows not how to march, or to profit by his 



ACTION: MEDITATION AND REST. 213 

marches. He must sometimes sit down, look behind 
and before him, recall and foresee, consider his strength 
and his time, and listen to that which the blades of 
grass, the ants, the birds, say to the traveller as he 
pauses for an instant. He must sit down to perceive, 
through the sounds and forms of things which pass, 
the voice of God and the whisper of the soul. 

He who cannot thus pause will carry away but little 
from his walks, though they reach around the world. 
It is the same with life. To estimate it, to appreciate 
it, to enjoy it, to get its meaning, we must sometimes 
sit on its banks and watch it flow by us. The best 
parts of life, and the most useful, are these halts. 
When we are harassed in body or mind, — when back, 
brain, or heart is weary, — it is always good to remember 
that one is neither a slave nor a beast of burden. Fa- 
tigue obscures our physical and moral vision. Accord- 
ing as we are perplexed and lassitude or fever takes 
hold of us, does a clear insight escape us. Our task 
seems the more difficult when we are exasperated and 
persist in it. Like burdens which, at first light, seem 
heavier as one bears them, and end by becoming in- 
supportable, uninterrupted work turns into drudgery. 
Then come terrible moments when we feel ourselves 
among inextricable difficulties, and beat our heads 
against insurmountable obstacles. This is as true of 
physical as of mental labour. Both are, after all, the 
application of the same energy in a single direction. 
This energy increases with moderate exercise, but 
is disheartened and weakened by excess of it. De- 
moralization easily seizes him whom undue labour 



214 YOUTH. 

has exhausted. We might say that it lies in wait for 
the worker, to spring on him the moment he bends be- 
neath his burden. 

As far as we can, then, we must take measures to 
give ourselves a respite, before it is too late. The right 
to rest is among the most sacred of the rights of man. 
He who does not enjoy it, who hinders others from en- 
joying it, sins against humanity. As soon as regular 
periods of rest and reflection are introduced into one's 
life, the whole being is renewed. Man at rest is like 
one undergoing a cure. His moral being has a change 
of place and air. He considers everything from a dif- 
ferent point of view. He looks as a spectator on the 
field where he is working, and regarding it from a 
more distant and a higher plane, understands better his 
task. While at his work he saw but its details ; now he 
sees its entirety and its environment. He sees the lives 
and work of others as they affect his personal activity. 
He establishes comparisons and learns lessons. All this 
will help him when he takes his accustomed place. But, 
above all, in rest he experiences true pleasure. Fatigue 
is a disease of which rest is the cure, and the happiest 
of mortals are its convalescents. The contrasts they 
feel in escaping the powers of death and destruction 
and in being reborn into life, are for them a source of 
infinite enjoyment such as no one else can fancy. If 
the slothful but knew what the worker enjoys in rest, 
they would set to work without question. The years 
of idleness given to that which it is agreed to call 
pleasure, are not worth an hour of the repose of real 
workers. It is for them that God unveils, when they 



ACTION: MEDITATION AND REST. 215 

take their ease, a whole world of beauty and richness 
which no one else can know. He says to them in his 
twilights and setting suns, and in the healing silence of 
compassionate night, eternal truths which can be heard 
only when one has borne the heat and burden of the 
day. 



216 YOUTH. 

CHAPTER V. 

ENJOYMENT. 

Wer nicht lieb Wein, Weib, und Gesang, 
Der bleibt ein Narr sein Leben lang. 

Luther. 
Live joyously ! 

Rabelais. 

Be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance. 

Jesus 
Xaipe ! (Greek salutation.) 

i. pleasures anti 'attractions* 

"THERE are three classes of individuals who disap- 
* prove of pleasure. There are, doubtless, more 
than three, but to enumerate them all would be to do 
them too much honour. It would be as dreary as a 
succession of rainy days. Three will suffice, — utilita- 
rians, ascetics, and pessimists. 

The first proscribe pleasure because it is useless and, 
according to them, makes us lose time without any 
equivalent. Their reason is final, as you see. 

The second condemn it because it is dangerous, in 
their eyes, and jeopardizes their salvation. There has 
existed, from time immemorial, a wide-spread concep- 
tion of religion wherein sombre hues predominate. 
God himself is joyless ; and man must sacrifice to this 
gloomy majesty enthroned in the midst of eternal 



ENJOYMENT: PLEASURES AND DISTRACTIONS. 217 

silence his joy and his poor fleeting smile, lest he 
should offend Him who never smiles. 

Pessimists, finally, deny pleasure because it deranges 
their system. It is always so. In philosophy when 
anything embarrasses you or does not frame in with 
your little theory, it must be suppressed. As I have to 
speak on a subject so thoroughly disapproved by such 
weighty authorities, I do not care to stand alone and 
have sought support. I have cited at the head of this 
chapter the words of several persons whom I consider 
sufficiently well known and of sufficient standing to 
sustain my views. I have added to theirs a word 
which is not the expression of any one man, but which 
incarnates the whole soul of a people, — x at P € ? the 
Greek salutation. It recalls the good old exclamation 
of our fathers, gai. It is therefore with a good con- 
science and in good company that I enter on this field. 
I propose to treat, first, of pleasure and distractions, and 
then, descending to depths more profound, of joy in 
the abstract. 

As we are speaking of pleasures and distractions, it 
is proper to point out their origin. Just as it is not cor- 
rect to say that priests invented religion, doctors disease, 
cooks hunger, and vinedressers thirst ; so it is absurd to 
imagine that distractions have been invented by moun- 
tebanks, jugglers, and "artists" of every kind, whose 
bread is won by amusing others, but who often do as 
ill service to their vocation as do bad priests, charlatans, 
and dealers in adulterated food products. The origin of 
distractions is to be sought in a very real and very 



218 YOUTH. 

legitimate need, the need of diversion. Rest alone is 
not enough. It hardly satisfies the brute. Animals 
themselves, especially the higher animals, have their 
plays and their amusements. How much more does 
man need them, especially the young man ! We are so 
constituted that the continual repetition of impressions, 
even though they are agreeable, enervates and wearies us. 
How must it be then with those severe tasks, those absorb- 
ing occupations, which use up in time the most robust 
strength. Youth becomes deformed and weary much 
sooner than middle age. The student, the young work- 
man, the young employe who have never or only too 
rarely a chance for diversion, will not be slow to suffer 
from its lack. Their lot is that of the slave. 

If, then, pleasure is a necessity and even a duty, if 
diversion sustains and renews us notwithstanding its 
detractors, it is worthy of our serious attention. We 
have to deal here, not with a secondary and unimpor- 
tant phenomenon, but with one of the most active 
factors of life. The question of the employment of 
our leisure and of the nature of our pleasures is a vital 
one. The means of distraction, indeed, are infinitely 
varied, and v/hile some are salutary others are perni- 
cious. To a certain extent the outcome of man's entire 
activity depends on how he employs his leisure. Whole- 
some amusements make him better and strengthen 
him ; unwholesome amusements ruin the individual, and 
become an agent in the dissolution of society. 

It is not enough to know how to work, we must 
know how to amuse ourselves. We admit, without 
qualification, that our age is not one of those which 



ENJOYMENT: PLEASURES AND DISTRACTIONS. 219 

have known how to give true and substantial satisfac- 
tion and a right direction to man's inborn need for diver- 
sion and relaxation. The age is a devotee of pleasure ; 
it has invented amusements and distractions which our 
fathers never knew ; but one is strictly within the truth 
in saying that it does not know how to amuse itself. 
The art has been lost, the recipe forgotten, like that of 
Greek fire and Roman cement. The history of leisure 
and of its employment is very instructive and very in- 
teresting, although the materials for many parts of it 
are difficult to get together. There are, however, cer- 
tain principles which are met with everywhere. In the 
youth of any people the means for healthful diversion 
and for virile pleasures are in keeping with their 
strength, their virtue, and their power of expansion. 
Such are racing, gymnastics, swimming, wrestling, out- 
door sports, everything that stirs the blood and makes 
the body supple, everything that increases the joy of liv- 
ing. In the old age of any people unmanly amusements, 
excessive and often shameful pleasures which gratify 
the senses, stupefy the body, and encourage idleness, 
are in keeping v/ith their decadence and decrepitude. 
Indoor life succeeds out-of-door life. We notice this 
evolution among the ancients. The Greeks of the 
decadence abandoned the salutary and manly prac- 
tice of wrestling, wherein their ancestors were distin- 
guished and to which they were devoted, for wine, 
play, and corrupting pleasures. The young Romans of 
the time of the Empire could not even lift the discs 
which their ancestors' vigorous arms had hurled. 
But as a general rule and despite the alternations of 



220 YOUTH. 

greatness and decadence in nations from ancient to 
modern times, there is an increasing tendency toward 
sedentary amusements. 

Relaxations which take the form of bodily exercise 
steadily decrease. In the Middle Ages the influence of 
the Church and of asceticism, it is true, makes itself 
strongly felt. The body is despised, as of no impor- 
tance or as a clog upon the soul. To weaken and neg- 
lect it as much as possible is the prevailing ideal. But 
the injury which asceticism does a part of society by its 
contempt for bodily exercise, and even for amusement 
in general, which it considers wicked, is counterbalanced 
by the influence of chivalry, where the entire educa- 
tion is based on vigorous physical development. One 
extreme corrects the other. 

The people themselves and their youth, although 
very unhappy, preserve, even during the darkest ages, 
that desire for happiness which betrays itself in amuse- 
ments often uproarious, in eccentricities and in follies. 
There are many out-of-door sports. As we approach 
the Renaissance, a more healthful teaching, and one in- 
spired by a different conception of life, gives to amuse- 
ment a place even in education. Games and sports are 
rehabilitated in the eyes of thinkers. Take Rabelais and 
Montaigne, for instance. Their ideas echo the views not 
only of an elite, they reflect those of their entire epoch. 
The Reformation too is a rehabilitation of enjoyment 
in the great department of morals. The rigours of 
Calvin at Geneva are rather a necessary protest, an 
indispensable means of suppressing libertinism, than a 
condemnation of enjoyment. We must read Luther, 



ENJOYMENT: PLEASURES AND DISTRACTIONS. 221 

must see him live and hear him sing, hear him draw up 
his indictment against melancholy and his apology for 
light-heartedness, — naming the first a vice, a kind of 
squalor of the soul, the second a virtue, — if we would 
understand the position of the Reformation on this sub- 
ject. In the seventeenth century there is everywhere 
an entire reaction. A factitious, an artificial, life is 
now in the ascendant, — a life of the salons and the 
court, coincident with an epoch of rigid dogmatism, 
nearly without precedent, and with long-continued na- 
tional calamities. Joy then underwent an eclipse easy to 
understand. The time to weep comes oftener to the peo- 
ple than the time to laugh. But let us hasten on to our 
own times. A single glance at our amusements com- 
pared, as a whole, with those of the past, is enough to 
show that they assume more and more of a sedentary 
character. The tendency can be seen in all strata of 
society. When we think of the secluded life of mental 
workers or of the toiling populace of our great cities, 
we cannot but deplore this state of things, — the rather 
that these sedentary amusements, of whatever kind they 
are, from the most innocent to the most depraving, 
have the disadvantage that they excite the nervous sys- 
tem. To quiet a brain overwrought by feverish labour, 
we have, more than ever, need of air, of movement, of 
healthful physical exercise, to repair m part the injury 
inflicted by bad air and by the cramped and homicidal 
attitudes of the workshop, the office, or the school. 
And what do we do ? We go to a play, in places where 
smoking, drinking, and gambling are going on ; or we 
read ~ and it is of the majority I speak — something 



222 YOUTH. 

as exciting as possible. The dose of emotion which is 
administered in certain kinds of literature and some 
plays, is that needed for flabby nerves which must be 
excited artificially to make them vibrate anew. It is gal- 
vanizing. Even reading, excellent in character though 
it be, is fatal when it monopolizes the best part of our 
leisure. We need an entire change. In saying this I 
include the whole world without exception. But it is 
the youth of the lower classes which excites my pity, 
because it does itself so much harm. When, worn out, 
harassed, enfeebled, it thirsts for a little relaxation, hap- 
piness, or forgetf ulness, there are open to it only injurious 
distractions and poisonous pleasures, — alcohol, licen- 
tiousness, bad literature. We are here face to face with 
a very serious evil, and one which among its other griev- 
ous results for morality, the public health, and the peace 
of society, has this, more to be regretted than the others, 
— it is killing joyousness. What are life and youth 
without it ? If we pollute its source, you might there- 
after offer us the world and all that it contains, but it 
would not repair the wrong. Without joyousness all is 
hollow, insipid, dead. 

# # 

I have hailed with delight the renaissance of out-of- 
door sports, games of strength and of skill among 
students ; and I pray that the tendency in this direction 
may increase daily, and may spread among the masses. 

Youth cannot but be the gainer, both as respects its 
education in general and its happiness, by a reform in 
the employment of its leisure and the choice of its 
pleasures. There are a hundred ways of being happy, 



ENJOYMENT: PLEASURES AND DISTRACTIONS. 223 

and of diverting oneself royally, while at the same 
time restoring a lost equilibrium. What we need is a 
return to simplicity, to those healthful and vigorous 
influences which soothe, calm, and make us love life, 
instead of those artificial pleasures which engender a 
disgust for it. 

There is one kind of enjoyment which is ever new, 
and which combines mental recreation with physical ex- 
ercise, while it holds an inexhaustible fund of delightful 
surprises, — it is the long pedestrian trip, pack on back, 
across country. Young Frenchman, take the staff of 
the old companions of the tour of France, and like 
them measure, step by step, your native land with your 
own feet, that you may love it better for knowing it 
better. The first imbecile you meet can sleep on 
the railway ; but what has he seen in his hundred 
leagues' run ? Two or three buffets ; that is all. This 
sort of thing ends in our knowing nothing of our 
native land. If youth were to acquire a liking for 
those long walking-trips made by ten or twelve light- 
hearted and sturdy comrades, what good it would do 
itself, while setting the best of examples. We must, at 
any cost, get out of ruts and recover our power of en- 
joyment. The forest with its strong fragrance, its 
voices, its strength, the mountain with its breezes and 
its vast horizons, the sea with its might and its poetry, 
are the nurses of youth. It is to them that it must go 
to gain strengh and life. 

Wem Gott will recbte Gimst erweisen, 
Den schickt er in die write Welt ! 

ElCHENDORF. 

* * 



224 YOUTH. 

But I hasten to a matter which interests me espe- ; 
daily; namely, singing. The decadence of singing 
among youth and among the masses is well known. 
I hope that it may spring up again, in the interests 
of happiness, of good living, and of public spirit. I 
dream of a renaissance of song among the people to 
which educated youth can contribute greatly. What- 
ever it sings the people repeats. 

Make us a fine collection of student songs on all 
those subjects which stir the heart of man, let it be an 
echo from every corner of the land and of every 
period of our history, — a collection suited to the peo- 
ple, and one wherein sings the very soul of France. 
We need this because we must sing, and, -in default of 
something better, we sing anything, no matter what. 
In our cities, even in the midst of all those discordant 
noises which conspire against man's ear and voice, the 
youth of the people finds a way to show its liking for 
song. I see young girls and lads gather in groups in 
the courts and squares, where they are safe from vehi- 
cles, and listen almost religiously to some guitar or 
.violin player, who sings to his own accompaniment. 
Twenty times does he repeat the same refrain. Pres- 
ently some know it and sing it with him. They buy 
the song, and go their way humming it over and over. 
Sometimes it is very improper, but not always; and I 
notice with infinite pleasure that they sing with very 
much more feeling and conviction certain excellent 
songs, poor in rhyme, but whose burden is love, suffer- 
ing, and the affairs of humanity. Often, caught in the 
improvised circle of eager pupils of a chance professor, 



ENJOYMENT: PLEASURES AND DISTRACTIONS. 225 

and a witness of the ardent craving of the masses for 
song, have I understood better than anywhere else the 
void which the song as it dies on the lips leaves in the 
heart ; and I have dreamed a dream as serious as it 
will seem to you eccentric. It is this : — 

He who, as a new troubadour, traverses France with 
no matter what instrument, and teaches the people to 
sing of love, of joy, of grief, of death, of the father- 
land, of Nature, of all that is old yet ever young, of 
all that lies sleeping in every heart and only asks to be 
awakened, will be a benefactor of humanity worthy to 
figure among the hosts of saints and martyrs. When 
we see this craving for song, so noble, so legitimate, 
and for the most part so illy satisfied, so unworthily led 
astray and taken advantage of, we feel both pity and 
indignation. O France, thou land of pleasant speech, 
who on the threshold of new epochs, in simple and 
harmonious strains didst teach the nations song, — 
land of love, of wine, of sunshine, — wilt thou see the 
melody poured from thy generous heart from age to 
age, silenced, and silenced before silly and pernicious 
rhymes ? No, it shall never be ! Thy old unconquered 
soul will sing again the old songs. The trouba- 
dour whom I await shall be thy youth, — thy whole 
youth. 

Though I fain would not, yet I must speak on a very 
painful point, which I cannot avoid in considering this 
subject; namely, the discredit into which amusements 
have fallen through their abuse. There are, alas ! many 
things, harmless in themselves, which we cm hardly 
any longer permit, because of this. Such, for instance, 



226 YOUTH. 

is dancing. What diversion is older and more charm- 
ing ? Dancing in the open air has so many excellent 
advantages for youth that it is a shame to see it be- 
come the monopoly of questionable assemblages. Oh 
the good old wedding-dances, where the most staid 
persons danced with the young and with the people! 
I have never seen anything like it in our day, except 
in some out-of-the-way corner, or occasionally on a 
night of the Fourteenth of July. And on one of 
those occasions so rarely met with, where men of all 
classes of society amuse themselves in happy unison, I 
have always experienced a peculiar emotion. It is so 
good to see joyousness pass like a sunbeam over all 
these faces wherein we can read so many different lots 
in life. But public manners have become such that a 
sight like this is now refused us. Except among inti- 
mates, where we are suffocated with heat and dust, 
dancing presents innumerable disadvantages which our 
grandfathers and our grandmothers never knew. It 
is the same with a host of good old customs. It is 
a sad thing to say, but as it is true, we must point it 
out, that we may organize against it : The world 
is given over to abuse, to that great murderer, that 
destroyer of right usage. When this wretch has poi- 
soned the springs, the water of the very rocks is sus- 
pected of impurity. This is why uprightness of life 
and virtue have fled to neutral ground, and become 
that dull, washed-out thing which consists above every- 
thing in abstaining and sometimes in playing the fool 
in the desire to play an angel's part. After having 
disfigured humanity with vice, we distort virtue itself. 



ENJOYMENT : PLEASURES AND DISTRACTIONS. 227 

We know it only, so to speak, as depressing and even 
■ — say it we must — tiresome. From the standpoint of 
youth, this is a misfortune. 

Who will give us back all those healthful, vigorous, 
and pleasing diversions in which the joy of living is 
incarnate, as are the sunbeams in flowers ? Their elders 
can in this do much for youth. I exhort all serious 
persons — the aged, parents, teachers, the clergy of every 
denomination, whoever is interested in good things and 
in a normal life, whoever retains his sensibilities — to 
come to the rescue of youth. It is not right that we 
should have separate pleasures. The loveliest family 
parties are those where old age smiles at youth, and 
where every age is represented, from grandparents to 
children. Every stage of life is there then, and how 
beautiful in their contrasts ! What is true of the fam- 
ily is true also of society in general. 

Frederic Froebel used to say : " Let us live for our 
children." Let us borrow his motto. Let us live for 
youth, and it will live for the right, and its joy will be 
pure. 

Our fathers delivered the holy land from the infidel. 
There is another holy land which brigands, thieves, the 
profane, pollute every day. It is the land of laughter 
and of pleasure. They have so thoroughly ravaged 
and disfigured it that it is not recognizable. But by 
the God of springtimes and of the stars, by the lov- 
ing-kindness which gives the fresh laugh to the lips of 
childhood and the sweet intoxication to the heart of 
youth, this holy land shall not remain in the hands 
of infidels. It is ours, and we shall regain it. 



228 YOUTH. 



2. 3]o£ougne0& 

Amusements and the different kinds of pleasure are, 
after all, only an outward evidence. The pure wine 
which we pour into the glasses is joyousness. Just as 
the grape finds in the soil, the rain, and the sun those 
elements of its sap which ripen it, so joyousness is the 
matured fruit of a good life. It is won by the valiant 
and the brave. It is not to be had for the asking. Let 
us look a little into this truth. Youth has great need 
to be impressed with it. 

The barometer rises and falls. The simple change of 
position of the mercury in a glass tube gives us valu- 
able information, and furnishes us a number of facts as 
to the state of the atmosphere. Often in noting its mark- 
ings, — rain, wind, tempest, calm, fine weather, settled 
weather, — I am surprised to find myself forgetting, of a 
sudden, the outer world and thinking of the world 
within, of the ceaseless change which characterizes it, 
which is reflected in our dispositions, and of which the 
immense diversity produces joyousness or depression. 
There also, according to the times and seasons, is 
rain or fine weather, calm or storm. There also the 
barometer rises and falls. All this individual detail we 
can observe in the life of society, on a larger and more 
striking scale. Life has its heights and its depths, its 
moments of buoyancy and of depression. All these 
moods manifest themselves in the heart or on the face 
by joy or sadness. 



ENJOYMENT : JOYOUSNESS. 229 

There is a sadness which comes from a hard life, 
whether it be material or spiritual. It corresponds in 
man with that bleached colour which in plants tells of 
their lack of sunshine. This sadness is in the highest de- 
gree sympathetic to us. It is often salutary. But there 
is another which we must fight to the death, — it is the 
sadness of those who are tired of life ; and still another 
which we must remedy by amending our ways, since it 
comes from bad living or bad thinking. 

Away with these persons who are tired of life ! They 
are but the spoiled children of existence. They barely 
put its cup to their lips ; they but taste its bread, or even 
throw it away, and deem those who eat it with good 
appetite clowns. There are few indeed of them among 
ragpickers, miners, labourers, sailors, investigators, or 
workers, of every kind, who are exposed to wind and 
rain. They are recruited from those who sit over the 
fire and eat, and only work a little in the intervals between 
their meals. Their fatigue comes from dancing long 
at a ball, playing late at a club, or from killing time by 
reading novels. To recover from such exertions, they 
sleep the whole morning through. They are like night- 
birds ; daylight hurts thei r eyes. By day they are sim- 
ply washed-out rags. They want to be seen only in a 
blaze of gas or electric light. These precious pessi- 
mists, as they go through life, are boied mildly at every- 
thing. But they do not forsake this wretched and 
insipid existence. They have a mission which forbids 
it, — that of making others feel as they do. Those of 
them who are writers have raised this mission to the 
height of a priesthood. They set themselves to ex- 



2j0 YOUTH. 

trading the quintessence of their gloomy thoughts and 
their heart-breaking impressions, and seal them up in 
bottles for the use of the public. Youth sometimes 
tries their wares. But whether distaste for life be drawn 
from the contagion of another's evil or from our own 
heart, we can boldly qualify it as a harmful germ, which 
thrives in an artificial and abnormal life. We must de- 
clare war without mercy against it. A distaste for life 
is an insurrection against the whole universe, for its 
mission is to produce life. Down with the pessimists ! 
Whether you be sarcastic or tragic, life denounces and 
contradicts you, ye workers of nothingness, on whose 
lips smiles disgust, as the will-o'-the-wisp over decaying 
marshes. 

Another kind of sadness is that which comes from 
evil thoughts. It is the cry of alarm which nature, 
abused within us, gives to our reason. It is absurd that 
reflecting on our life should make us despair of it. The 
whole philosophy of pessimism or of despondency, 
every religion which destroys joyousness, is a wrong. Its 
fruit condemns it. If pessimism were true, the flowers 
would cease to blow, the stars would go out, the springs 
of life would dry up. While the universe exists, there 
is no reason to despair of human life. We must there- 
fore distrust opinions which destroy joyousness. Half 
truths may be depressing ; the whole truth never. 

The melancholy which comes from an evil life tells 
its monotonous and lamentable story on pale drawn 



ENJOYMENT: JOYOUSNESS. 2)\ 

faces. You are wretched because you have not re- 
spected the sources of life. A parasite is preying on 
you, vice is thriving on the very roots of your existence ; 
and as it prospers, you fail. Wherever this depression 
exists, it shows a hidden evil. There is some lack or 
something wrong in the depths of your being. Your 
life, misunderstood, stained, and disordered, bleeds from 
a thousand wounds, and joy can no longer exist. 

Joyousness takes flight, once again, from those rigid 
and conventional spheres where life and its actions are 
as straightly lined as a sheet of music. Abandoning 
the field to the followers of that terrible god ennui, it 
opens its wings and flies away. Like the flowers of 
the forest and the mountains, it loves free air, inde- 
pendence, and to rough it a little. Let us speak here, 
in passing, of the injury which luxurious and affected 
tastes have done to family pleasures and consequently 
to youth. Sociability is on sufferance. Instead of 
simple and cordial receptions, oft repeated, we give, 
from time to time, costly entertainments, where ambi- 
tion and a puerile desire to outdo others destroy all 
pleasure in advance. Who suffers most from this? 
Youth, for it must find other amusement. 

I note, as one of the worst destroyers of joyousness, 
the spirit of scoffing. There is a laugh which withers 
whatever it touches, and dries up all feeling forever. It 
delights in ridiculing holy and venerable things. Vid 
Hugo has said, with rare psychological penetration, that 
the dullest minds were scoffers. To scoff is not to 



232 YOUTH. 

laugh. On the contrary, scoffing kills laughter. We 

must have retained a certain freshness of impressions to 

be frankly amused. Let us not sacrifice the good old 

laugh of our France, with its jovial and good-natured 

irony and its natural gayety, to that questionable and 

profane spirit which turns to jest the saddest task, and 

scents evil from afar. 

# 

To sum up : To preserve the capacity for happi- 
ness we must go back to work and to simplicity, we 
must respect life and observe its laws. What do I 
say ? We must love life. 

It seems superfluous to preach this love to youth ; 
but it is not so. If there is anything which does not 
come of itself, it is this. To rise to this great love, and 
to open our heart until it embraces every part of it, is 
not the work of a day. One of the lowest concep- 
tions of joy is that which makes it the appanage of 
youth alone, and considers all the rest of existence as 
an empty shell whose nut has been eaten. There is 
a joy of youth, no doubt, inseparable from the fresh- 
ness of its impressions, and which can be lost by the 
way, by slow misshaping of character, by its faults 
or its sufferings. In this sense we can say of young 
people as we do of children : Leave them to their 
happiness ; care will come only too soon, — we are 
young but once. But this is not facing the truth. 
There are lives which begin in sadness and end in joy. 
Such a life is never more active nor younger than 
toward the forties, when it has overcome a series of 
material and mental difficulties. I have no hesitation 



ENJOYMENT: JOYOUSNESS. 233 

in saying that the joyousness then felt is more sub- 
stantial than at twenty. Still more, there are certain 
old persons — admirable, but rare, I admit, though still 
to be found — in whom I have met joyousness in its 
purest form. I mean that serenity born of suffering ac- 
cepted and conquered, of loved work, of long devotion 
to duty, and of an ever-deepening conviction of the aim 
of life and its worth. And when I teach youth to love 
life, I point out these old persons and those who re- 
semble them, as professors in this high learning. I 
consider that to know pure light-heartedness on the 
threshold of life is a great happiness. We must ad- 
mire it among those who have won it in hard fight ; 
we must consider it an inestimable good, and aspire 
some day to share it. 

Besides, the very joyousness of youth, that happy 
disposition which at times makes us think everything 
good and beautiful, has its conditions, — to be enjoyed 
it must be deserved. Joyousness is a tres grande 
dame ; she does not answer the invitation of the first 
comer. Many a company strives in vain, shouts, and 
spends money to bring her ; she will not come ; theirs 
are but empty sounds, their laugh rings false. 

Nothing is more beautiful than joy. It is a divine 
spark, a daughter of the skies. It lifts the heart ; it 
illumines the thought. It makes us see, in a single 
brilliant flash, secrets which on ordinary days our 
cloudy thoughts seek for in vain. It does away with 
distance, it brings men together, it inclines us to pity, 
it makes us stronger and better. It is so good and of 
such value that we must sacrifice, without a moment's 



232 YOUTH. 

laugh. On the contrary, scoffing kills laughter. We 
must have retained a certain freshness of impressions to 
be frankly amused. Let us not sacrifice the good old 
laugh of our France, with its jovial and good-natured 
irony and its natural gayety, to that questionable and 
profane spirit which turns to jest the saddest task, and 
scents evil from afar. 

To sum up : To preserve the capacity for happi- 
ness we must go back to work and to simplicity, we 
must respect life and observe its laws. What do I 
say ? We must love life. 

It seems superfluous to preach this love to youth ; 
but it is not so. If there is anything which does not 
come of itself, it is this. To rise to this great love, and 
to open our heart until it embraces every part of it, is 
not the work of a day. One of the lowest concep- 
tions of joy is that which makes it the appanage of 
youth alone, and considers all the rest of existence as 
an empty shell whose nut has been eaten. There is 
a joy of youth, no doubt, inseparable from the fresh- 
ness of its impressions, and which can be lost by the 
way, by slow misshaping of character, by its faults 
or its sufferings. In this sense we can say of young 
people as we do of children : Leave them to their 
happiness ; care will come only too soon, — we are 
young but once. But this is not facing the truth. 
There are lives which begin in sadness and end in joy. 
Such a life is never more active nor younger than 
toward the forties, when it has overcome a series of 
material and mental difficulties. I have no hesitation 



ENJOYMENT: JOYOUSNESS. 233 

in saying that the joyousness then felt is more sub- 
stantial than at twenty. Still more, there are certain 
old persons — admirable, but rare, I admit, though still 
to be found — in whom I have met joyousness in its 
purest form. I mean that serenity born of suffering ac- 
cepted and conquered, of loved work, of long devotion 
to duty, and of an ever-deepening conviction of the aim 
of life and its worth. And when I teach youth to love 
life, I point out these old persons and those who re- 
semble them, as professors in this high learning. I 
consider that to know pure light-heartedness on the 
threshold of life is a great happiness. We must ad- 
mire it among those who have won it in hard fight ; 
we must consider it an inestimable good, and aspire 
some day to share it. 

Besides, the very joyousness of youth, that happy 
disposition which at times makes us think everything 
good and beautiful, has its conditions, — to be enjoyed 
it must be deserved. Joyousness is a tres grande 
dame; she does not answer the invitation of the first 
comer. Many a company strives in vain, shouts, and 
spends money to bring her ; she will not come ; theirs 
are but empty sounds, their laugh rings false. 

Nothing is more beautiful than joy. It is a divine 
spark, a daughter of the skies. It lifts the heart ; it 
illumines the thought. It makes us see, in a single 
brilliant flash, secrets which on ordinary days our 
cloudy thoughts seek for in vain. It does away with 
distance, it brings men together, it inclines us to pity, 
it makes us stronger and better. It is so good and of 
such value that we must sacrifice, without a moment's 



234 YOUTH. 

hesitation, all that lessens it, and seek for all that in- 
creases it. 

Joy has its high days. At the time when Nature 
awakes, when all is growing, when the labourer is 
sowing the seed, have you ever seen the lark rise 
from the furrow, singing as he soars toward the sun, 
hymning the soul of the fields, the blossoming flowers, 
labour, and love ? On certain days when hands clasp 
of themselves, when hearts beat in unison, joy is like 
this lark. It rises, and in its song which sums all life, 
it seems to say to it : "I love thee in thy morning and 
in thy evening, in tears and in laughter, in thy manly 
struggle, and in thy peaceful repose. I love thee under 
every sky, in every age, in all those closed eyes which 
rest beneath the earth ; and whatever be my lot, I am 
happy to live, and I trust myself thankfully to that 
merciful will through whom we are, and which enwraps 
us ever." 



SOLIDARITY: THE FAMILY. 235 



CHAPTER VI. 

SOLIDARITY. 

i. £tje jFamtirN 

TTUMAN solidarity presents us in the family a se- 
* * ries of condensed object-lessons. The family has 
sometimes been considered a narrow framework which 
must be broken, that we may substitute for its close 
but restricted bonds the greater bond of social solidar- 
ity. This would be to destroy solidarity in its very 
germ. 

We must have experienced the family sentiment be- 
fore we can transport it on a larger scale to the city, to 
the national family, to the great family of mankind. 
The family is a school so happily contrived that we 
there learn things almost spontaneously. I do not know 
if we acquire most through the intelligence, the feel- 
ings, or the affections ; but man is always influenced on 
every side, whether in the direction of his weakness or 
of his strength. He is assimilated, united, and incorpo- 
rated, first by heredity, next by the affections, and last 
by reflection and appreciation. We realize so thor- 
oughly in the glow of family life that it existed be- 
fore us, encircles us in the present, and will live after 
us. It is not the child alone that feels itself thus en- 
wrapped and protected, — it is its elders, the strong, the 



236 YOUTH. 

aged. A greater hand than that of man unceasingly di- 
rects the family. Things human and divine so inter- 
mingle there that they can hardly be distinguished. If 
there be a sanctuary not made with hands, it is indeed 
the family. God there shows himself kind and paternal ; 
he manifests himself always and in all things. The 
father stands in His place to the child, the child recalls 
Him to the father. The traits of our ancestors, revived 
in their posterity, give us a presentiment of a myste- 
rious survival. Can you be realists, materialists, utili- 
tarians in the family ? You try to be, I well know ; 
but you always stop at a certain point. On a sudden, 
at a moment when you least expect it, your heart 
tightens, and the tears come to your eyes. You say 
then, you positivists, " This is ridiculous ; " and you say 
truly, for it is folly which has overtaken and possessed 
you, but a holy folly. A ray of kindness or tenderness, 
a ray of grief or pity, has revealed to you a world you 
did not know. Ah! you speak of suppressing the 
family, of renouncing its ties, — some of you for the 
greater glory of God, some of you for the greater 
good of society. But if for our sins the darkness of 
creation could fall again upon humanity ; if God could 
disappear from our horizon ; if all tradition, all the 
Bible, all that which man has graven in stone, could be 
lost and forgotten ; if disorder and anarchy could throw 
back society into chaos, — some day, two souls that 
loved would find the germ of a new world beside the 
cradle of a child. Touch not the family. And to young 
men I say, — do not relax family ties. 



SOLIDARITY: THE FAMILY. 2)7 

Fathers and mothers, whatever may be your position 
and your duties in the world, keep the better part of 
yourselves for the family. Be sure that in neglecting 
it you neglect an essential, and that the services you 
render elsewhere are neutralized by the injury you do at 
home. It is for this reason that we are bound to the 
family by the tender ties of joy and sorrow. Make the 

ifly pleasant for the children. Make the nest warm, 

: be at the same time judicious. Be go.od yet firm, 
loved yet respected. Be neither violent nor foolishly 

lulgent. Have none of that tyrannical love which 
stifles individuality and kills the will. May the fair, 
and the hearth never lose their power of attraction 
and development ! Keep the confidence of your sons 
as long as possible. Make them feel the need and 
pleasure of confiding in you by the tact with which 
you hear them. 

How we must pity those who have no family, or 
toward whom the family has nqjt done its duty ! But 
let us not lift that veil ; we should have before our eyes 
too hopeless a world. 

Young men, do not relax family ties. Be your 
fathers' and your mothers' little children, even when 
you are yourselves fathers. It is so good to feel oneself 
a child ; and the more one grows, and the older one ge 
the more good it does one. The strongest men are 
those who have best loved their mothers. When we love 
and respect her who brought us into the world, we i 
very near respect for all women. And when we respect 
our father's moral authority, happy in being able to sh 



238 YOUTH. 

our filial feeling, we have a good basis for respecting all 
authority. Honour thy father and thy mother. This 
twofold law of respect — for woman in her mother- 
hood and for man in his moral pre-eminence — must 
be considered as an indispensable foundation of human 
solidarity and of a good and just life. Let us strengthen 
our souls by contact with these elementary principles, 
these simple and holy truths, which become more wide- 
reaching the farther from childhood we see them, and 
which, even though our hair be white, we must hear on 
bended knee and with joined hands, as little children. 

Will you, young reader, be of those who rate rever- 
ence as a virtue of childhood to which it is proper to 
say adieu when your beard begins to grow ? Let me 
call your attention to this : The law which dominates all 
history has evolved from absolutely despotic power, 
based on fear, the authority of laws based on respect. 
Each of us goes through the different stages of this 
evolution. As children we obey at once through fear ; 
when grown, we practise the voluntary obedience that 
comes from respect. Let us establish this kind of obe- 
dience in the family, that we may teach it to those 
about us. It is this willing obedience that our age and 
our democratic land most need. In acting as a good 
son, you cannot tell how far you have already acted as 
a good citizen. Emancipation consists in practising 
respect from conviction and with premeditation. With- 
out respect no man is free. Liberty is self-government, 
according to the inner law. 

We must check in ourselves, with all our might, the 
puerile tendency to criticise instinctively, to scoff, to 



SOLIDARITY: FRIENDSHIP. 239 

treat things cavalierly. It is the trick of a gamin. To 
become a man is to discover daily in men and things 
more reasons for taking them seriously. The great 
question of tradition and of to-day — that is, the ques- 
tion of despotism and liberty, which makes so much 
noise in the world — should be solved between fa- 
thers and sons. Between fathers and children should 
be settled also that great business of the rights of the 
individual as against the rights of the community, so 
that neither be wronged. No university, no book, will 
teach you all this as will the family. I say to you that 
it is the world in miniature. It is the humblest and the 
greatest school that exists. One learns there with ease 
a host of difficult things. In applying yourself to solve 
with patience, reverence, and fraternity the difficulties 
of the family, you are preparing yourself for the work 
you are to perform in society, where you will meet the 
same difficulties on a larger scale. 

2. jFrten&stjtp* 

The friendship of youth ! As the ancients used to 
offer a lock of hair upon the altars of the gods, so 
would I offer in its homage the best I have. Even 
when those we once loved have long slept beneath the 
sod, they live for us in the memories of a vanished 
past, and we catch ourselves sometimes in the silence 
of solitudes conversing with them familiarly, telling 
them the sorrow and joy we have met along the road 
of life, since the day when we laid them in the tomb 
beside it. 



240 YOUTH. 

There are seasons for friendship in individual life, 
just as there are in that of society. Certain times of 
life have a sociability wholly juvenile ; we then make 
friends easily. Others have the prudence and the re- 
serve of misanthropic old men. When material inter- 
ests are in the ascendant, when the struggle for existence 
is accentuated, and when the nerves are tense and over- 
strained, association with our kind becomes painful. 
Friction arises ; there is a conflict of desires, a clashing 
of ambitions. We love then to shelter our irritability 
behind a wall of silence, as molluscs shut themselves 
up in their shells. But these varying periods concern 
us little. The time of good and warm friendships for 
each of us is the time of youth. I always sincerely pity 
a young man who has no friend, and if he is himself 
the chief cause of his isolation, I remonstrate seriously 
with him. We must have comrades, and a certain num- 
ber of them, to lead a life in common, to rub off our 
corners against theirs, as we polish flints by shaking 
them together in a bag. We must have comrades again 
to pursue the same aims, to develop esprit de corps and 
solidarity, to sing and laugh with us ; but among this 
troop of good companions it is essential that we should 
cultivate relations more intimate still, that we should 
have friends. Our intellectual development demands 
it. To chat, converse, talk together, to utter in the 
most absolute intimacy our ideas on all subjects, in inter- 
minable and delightful discussions, whether strolling 
side by side or at night by the fireside, — what an ad- 
vantage is this to a growing intelligence ! This advan- 
tage is more apparent still in epochs when, as to-day, 



SOLIDARITY : FRIENDSHIP. 241 

orientation is long and difficult. To whom shall we tell 
all our thoughts ? Who better than a friend of our 
own age, exposed to like difficulties, can understand us, 
hear our questions, and answer our objections ? If I 
were offered in exchange the most delightful of intel- 
lectual enjoyments, I should not hesitate an instant to 
refuse them for that friendly discussion of all sorts of 
things where two fresh minds, curious as to everything, 
give themselves up to the delights of discovery, while 
tasting those of affection. There is perhaps only one 
satisfaction of this kind more rare and more precious, 
and that is to meet again, after long years of sepa- 
ration, a friend of our youth, and to live over with him 
for an hour of mingled pleasure and sadness those good 
times of old, exclaiming again and again: " Do you 
remember ? do you remember ? " 

The friendships of youth have another advantage in 
that they influence the feelings, the character, and the 
conduct. Good friendships supply many things that 
youth lacks ; they put to flight morbid fancies, and aid 
it to walk steadily along paths where it is apt to stum- 
ble. This is especially the case when we reach that 
perfect frankness which keeps back nothing. There are 
days when no one but a friend can be of use. When 
we no longer listen to him, our moral deafness, for the 
moment at least, is complete. We must, then, cultivate 
friendship, if only as a means of moral perfection and 
education, and of exchanging help in times of trouble. 
The cup of cold water of tenderness and good will 
which our friend offers us to-day to help us bear and 
overcome our trials, he may perhaps himself need to- 

16 



242 YOUTH. 

morrow when we shall offer it to him with a like 
affection. 

In these days of duplicity and hypocrisy friendship 
should become more and more a bond ot loyalty and 
truth. Who should talk to us so freely as a friend ? 
He is a brother of our own choosing, he is nearer to 
us than our own family. When truth shows itself 
in his face and speaks through his voice, we cannot 
say that " it assumes a countenance too imperiously 
magisterial." x 

Another great resource of friendship is that it strength- 
ens us for those sharp and formidable struggles which 
youth is called to sustain, for causes which it has nearest 
at heart, and which are often unpopular in the commu- 
nity. To throw off routine and bondage, to keep one- 
self from giving way a thousand times in those adverse 
encounters which discourage the best of us, to avoid 
distrusting oneself after repeated opposition, we must 
renew, from time to time, our stock of courage and 
faith in the bosom of friendship. 



I will add but a word. It seems to me not only pos- 
sible but desirable, that youth should cultivate, outside 
of friendships with those of like age, close and affec- 
tionate relations with those of riper age, or with elderly 
persons who have retained interest in those who are 
beginning life. A young man, even he who lacks no 

1 Montaigne. 



SOLIDARITY : FRIENDSHIP. 243 

advantage of position, is often happy to have some one 
above him whom he may love and admire. It is not 
a question of swearing by any one in verba magistri, 
but of attaching oneself to some one, of looking up to 
some one, As a general rule, the best-made minds, 
those most capable of independence, at a certain age 
seek a master, and ask nothing better than to be 
disciples. 

I do not admit that serious, busy, and distinguished 
men have no time to devote to youth ; that they can- 
not instruct them, not only as a class, but as individu- 
als, by advising and by learning to know and to be 
useful to them. Write fewer books, good sirs, and 
throw so many more living words of advice into the 
grateful furrows of young minds. This is in the high- 
est degree for the interests of man and of our country. 
How pleased I am. to see these ideas so long forgotten 
begin to show themselves anew on all sides ! Let us be 
brothers ! It is the great motto of universal solidarity. 
Let the France of to-day and of yesterday fraternize 
with the France of to-morrow. 

Verily, youth is goo'd ; it contents itself with so little, 
it is so thankful for what is done for it, that it is always 
a pleasure and a profit to serve it. And I was near for- 
getting the best thing about it, — we become young in 
its company. All the elixirs in the world cannot com- 
pare with it, for those who dread old age. 



244 YOUTH. 



3. 3lofoe* 

Flambeau sublime et pur mais qui tremble souvent, 
Pour te bien abriter de la pluie et du vent, 
Et faire rayonner ta clart£ souvraine, 

Heureux qui peut passer sans s'interrompre un jour 
De Famour de sa mere a Tamitie' sereine 
Et de Tamitie' sainte a son premier amour ! l 

A. Dorchain. 

A good and sympathetic physician — one of those 
whom familiarity with the dead has not taught con- 
tempt for humanity, but who, on the contrary, has 
seen beyond the little which the intelligence of man can 
discover in our poor remains the holiness of life — com- 
plains that human life is neglected at its beginning. 
We are better informed, he says, as to how to raise 
young domestic animals than to care for children. This 
doctor's remark has often come to my mind a propos 
of love. If there is a matter on which good advice is 
necessary at the beginning of life, it is this. If there is 
a matter on which it is lacking, it is this. Every person 
finds the subject a delicate one. Teachers think that 
parents alone are competent to treat it ; parents refer it 
to teachers. Thus, most of the time, both neglect it. 
Youth reaches its most critical age without a compass 

1 " Flambeau sublime and pure, yet often wavering, 
Happy is he who without interruption — 
That he may shelter thee from rain and wind 
And make thy sovereign light irradiate — 
Passes from mother love to serene friendship, 
From holy friendship to his own first love.'* 



SOLIDARITY: LOVE. 245 

and without direction. I mistake. The instruction that 
is neglected by parents and teachers is always supplied 
from outside sources. It is impossible that children's 
curiosity should not some day or other be satisfied. A 
bad companion, one of those compositions which are 
getting to be so difficult to avoid, initiates the being 
who is still pure into what it is agreed to call the secret 
of life. From that moment a dreadful work goes on in 
the imagination of this novice. Confidence in parents 
and masters is rudely shaken. For their ascendancy is 
substituted that of a teacher without authority ; some- 
thing new and perilous has entered his life, and it will 
be difficult indeed to eliminate it. 

We touch here on the first serious and melancholy 
point in this complex question of love. Though we 
are writing for adult youth, we must go back of it. 
Love in its numerous ramifications really covers all our 
life, and what the innocent child has heard on the out- 
skirts of a world which is still closed to him deter- 
mines very often his conduct later on. I cannot, then, 
but deplore that we are informed by preference on this 
intimate and sacred subject by irreverent strangers, and 
that an hour of brutal indiscretion, which distresses us 
long, perhaps forever, fills for us an office to which 
there cannot be brought too much precaution, too much 
maternal wisdom, on the part of those who love us 
best. 

I will, however, content myself with having thus 
touched on a subject which concerns the age mime- 



246 YOUTH. 

diately preceding adolescence, and without further delay 
will return to my proper field. 

How should a young man who is not married and, 
we will suppose, not engaged, conduct himself as re- 
gards love ? 

The prime necessity here is to possess respect for life, 
for its pre-eminence, its worth, its sacredness, and, 
consequently, for the obligations imposed on us by our 
position as its heirs. The fundamental sentiment which 
should run through all the acts and behaviour of a 
young man is that of his virile dignity. If he has this 
sentiment, life will seem to him a deposit, and not an 
individual possession, and he will have constantly within 
him a powerful ally, very noble and very efficacious, 
in aiding him to keep and guide himself. 

The sentiment of virile dignity and self-respect can, 
without doubt, be strengthened or thwarted by second- 
ary means. At the age when the passions awake and 
when their very novelty, their disturbing and unfore- 
seen character, constitute a peril, it is as possible to 
lessen this peril as to increase it. The influence of 
regimen, of food, and of surroundings is at the very 
least as great here, if not greater, than that of nature. 
Excessive mental labour, a sedentary life, pernicious 
reading, idleness, can transform into a tormenting and 
persistent desire that which without it would have been 
easily mastered. On the other hand, a healthful regi- 
men, energetic habits, amusements, and physical fatigue 
are diversions so useful that, thanks to them, the most 
critical years pass by unnoticed. All this is of the last 
importance. One must live normally to act normally, 



SpLIDARITY: LOVE. 247 

Destroy the equilibrium of one's lif^, and you at once 
disturb that of one's actions. The causes of individual 
and social misconduct, for the most part, are the results 
of a series of hygienic lapses. 

Yet the fundamental point is always the conception 
we form of our life, our dignity, and, consequently, of 
our aim. This is why self-respect is the great thing- in 
youth. A grand ideal, a lofty conception of life in its 
entirety, and of the work which each of us is called to 
do, is the best councillor in matters of love. For, first 
of all, it preserves us from the sophisms and cynical 
precepts with which persons of stunted feelings have 
sown this whole subject. We need not say that if 
youth meets anywhere on its road foolish and criminal 
maxims, it is here. In the name of that which they 
call a physical necessity, they urge it not to injure it- 
self, but to yield to its desires. To act thus is right ; to 
act otherwise is foolish, and even wicked. " In a land 
where the virginity of a lad of twenty is the subject of 
traditional and almost national pleasantry," 1 it is good 
to have within one a counter weight to such enormities. 
It is true that a simple glance at our youth in general is 
enough to make us understand that its need, if it have 
any, is to keep and husband its strength. 

Their would-be need, which they talk so loudly 
about, exists, far more than elsewhere, in imagina- 
tions over-stimulated by bad reading, sensual talk, and 
bad examples. But even let us admit this need as 
a real one. It is none the less necessary that our whole 
nature, its noble instincts and its higher needs, be re- 

1 A re. 



248 YOUTH. 

spected. Acts which lessen our esteem for ourselves 
and for others, which detract from our dignity, are bad, 
even though they are provoked by a perfectly legitimate 
desire. How many things there are, in themselves 
harmless, which we must deny ourselves, because their 
acquisition costs too dear. On a host of occasions 
when many duties are pressing on us at the same time, 
it would be disgraceful to think of rest, hunger, or 
thirst, though the enjoyment of all these is among the 
incontestable rights of man. He who has an ideal of 
action and principles of conduct is distinguished from 
him who has none, by the position he accords in his 
life to the different needs of his being, and by the clair- 
voyance and the firmness with which he knows how 
to subordinate some to others. This is why I lay down 
the principle that the prime necessity in love is to 
have an ideal, because this ideal helps us to govern our- 
selves. For him who appreciates his life, his dignity, 
and that of others, to yield to his passions is, under cer- 
tain conditions, to betray what is most noble in him to 
gratify a simple desire. Consequently, while recog- 
nizing that this desire is a legitimate one in itself, he 
prefers to sacrifice it ; and thus the first homage he 
renders to his nature and to himself is that of chastity. 

Chastity has a host of enemies. I do not include 
cynics and scoffers. With them we have nothing to do 
here, for all our arguments are based on that whole 
conception of life which we have laid down in this book. 
But it is well to answer a specious and even serious 
objection which is founded on the danger of being too 
wise. These enemies are quick to throw at your head, 



SOLIDARITY: LOVE. 249 

as an unanswerable argument, " He who tries to play 
the angel, plays the fool." There is certainly truth in 
this old adage, and it is not for me to contest it. But 
we can see by the sequel that it is not here a case of 
playing the angel. I will simply observe that many 
play the fool who have never tried to play the angel. 
They have not fallen into the mud because they tried to 
fly too high, but because they began too low down. 
The best way to become the slave of one's desires is to 
obey, not master them. And as to the deformity of 
character which can result from monastic chastity, it has 
its counterpart — and, indeed, a great one, alas! — in 
that sad decadence of so many persons who have never 
had any other rule than their pleasure. Even on this 
ground I am sure of my position. If there were only 
excess of laxity on one hand and excess of restraint on 
the other, I should choose the latter, believing that I 
should sacrifice less of my manhood. 

Nevertheless, I do not preach monasticism in speak- 
ing of chastity. I do not advise you to despise virility, 
but to respect and preserve it. We have so far exam- 
ined only the lesser — the arid, the negative — side of this 
question. Many go no further. Society during whole 
epochs has wrestled with it without finding a solution. 
Extremes provoke extremes. Our existing society, like 
many which have preceded it, shows the working of 
this law. As regards love, it is at the same time lax 
and prudish, depraved and severely virtuous. All this 
is logical. A society which permits license in youth and 
counsels it, degrades love. The temptation to consider 
it questionable or inferior becomes natural. The cor- 



250 YOUTH. 

ruption of some has as a counterpart the prudery or 
the asceticism of others ; and of this medley of tenden- 
cies hypocrisy is born. Tartuffe is outwardly an as- 
cetic, inwardly a rake. 

Alas ! these are contradictions which we pay for with 
the disruption of society, its principles and its institu- 
tions. We are, in truth, in that sensitive state when 
the vibration from a blow is far reaching. Sin against 
love at its base, — in youth, — and the life of the whole 
nation is torn, and suffers immeasurably. 

I sum up, then : the rule of conduct here is chastity. 
Every infraction is a sin. Though this law may seem 
difficult and severe, it is the only safe one. Morality 
without it is but rubbish. It is hard to be truthful and 
honest ; but no one has ever deduced therefrom that lies 
and theft are allowable. May he who falls, who goes 
astray, — no matter how, — and loses respect for him- 
self and for love, know the injury he has done himself. 
This, in painful moral situations, is his best hope for 
salvation. But to call evil good because evil is hard to 
avoid is worse than to act wrongly, for it is to warp 
one's conscience. This is a maxim which should be 
promulgated with absolute authority. 

This principle once laid down, we must consider the 
life of those young men who try to practise it. We 
look on here at a struggle which has our warm sym- 
pathy. For him who has kept the exquisite perception 
of morality, there can be no more beautiful spectacle. 
Sully Prudhomme, in his preface to the poetry of 
Monsieur A. Dorchain, La jeunesse pensive, says : — 



SOLIDARITY: LOVE. 251 

11 In reading these verses, where the struggles and 
griefs of our twentieth year find their discreet but very 
sincere expression, more than one will feel old wounds 
open in his soul. We cannot look on, as cold specta- 
tors, at the suffering which he — the young man — 
undergoes. We lean toward him from the bank to 
offer him a friendly hand." 

This struggle is more or less violent according to 
natures and temperaments. There are some privileged 
beings whom a certain inborn nobleness preserves, by 
giving them an instinctive repugnance for all which is 
low and trivial. Evil takes no hold on them. We 
may say of them, — 

Le moule en est d'airain si Vespece en est rare ; 
Elle sait ce que vaut son marbre de Carfare, 
Et que les eaux du del ne Ventament jamais. 1 

A. DE MUSSET. 

But others, especially among the best of youth, are at 
a disadvantage from their sensibility, their power of 
imagination, their very qualities. 

Enfant, dans la lutte eiemelle 
Tu crois avoir dompte ton coeur ; 
Deja tu veux ouvrir ton aile 
Et f envoi er, lib re et vain que ur. 

Tu crois a la force benie, 

A la vertu que rien n'abat . . . 
Va, la lutte nest pas finie, 
Ce riest que le premier combat. 

1 Literally: " Its mould is brazen, though the kind is rare; it 
knows the value of its Carrara marble, and that the rains of heaven 
can never stain it." 



252 YOUTH. 

Ton ame tf est point cTnn ascete 
Hors de la mature emporie, 
Mais d'un amant et d'unpoete 
Ivre de forme et de beaute*. 

Ton coeur est plus chaud que le notre ; 
Tu le sens bondir nuit et jour. 
Tit souffriras done plus qu'un autre 
Par le Desir et par V Amour 1 

A. DORCHAIN. 

But we must get back to prose, and look at the situ- 
ation as it really exists. For in the struggle of which 
we speak, and which, be it more or less bitter, no one 
can avoid, the important thing is not to be always the 
stronger, but never to surrender. In the great book of 
the wisdom of life, there is a precept as important as 
that of taking heed lest one fall ; it is that where one is 
bidden to rise again when one has fallen. For a man 
to pass through life without ever offending any law of 
conscience, it is necessary that in chastity as well as 
other respects he should be perfect. We have by no 
means reached that point. Let us expect, then, those 

1 " Child, in this endless strife you believe that you have gained 
the mastery over your heart, and already you would spread your 
wing and fly away free and victorious. 

" You believe in that blessed force, that virtue which nothing 
can destroy. Go to ! the struggle is not finished, — this is but 
the first encounter. 

" Your soul is not that of an ascetic carried beyond the concern 
for material things, but that of a lover and a poet intoxicated with 
form and beauty. 

"Your heart is warmer than ours; you can feel it bounding 
night and day. You will then suffer more than another from de- 
sire and love." 



SOLIDARITY: LOVE. 253 

dark hours when our vision is troubled, when the 
struggle seems uncertain, when weakness, discourage- 
ments, and even failures overcome us. These are most 
unhappy and most perilous moments. Never mind 
them. A man who is down is not necessarily dead ; 
he may be only wounded or have simply stumbled. 
The great thing is for him not to lie there, not to give 
up, lose hope, and, above all, not to renounce his aim. 
Let his ideal remain intact, and his hope of some day 
coming off conqueror be unshaken ! Let the evil be 
still called evil, and let him who has fallen recognize 
the fact ! Above everything, let there be no sophisms, 
no falsehoods. 

Here the intervention of sure and tried friends is very 
beneficial. It would be a great shame to see an upright 
youth, one pure in heart, come to despise himself or 
despair of himself, because of this or that moral defeat. 
Let us lift youth up and encourage it, with a tender- 
ness that never fails. 

Who. alas ! trouble themselves about this ? Nothing 
equals the inconsistency of the world's conduct toward 
the young. It sets them bad examples, and then, when 
they go astray, abuses or keeps them down where they 
have fallen. By turns lax and severe, we ignore that 
pity which lifts up and makes whole, and few indeed 
know that mercy of the just which consists in hating the 
sin while loving the sinner. We are here treading a dif- 
ficult path, and one little used. One would say that we 
were far away from humanity, though in its very midst. 
Is not the great work of life to repair error ? That is 
not the best army which has never been beaten ; we do 



254 YOUTH. 

not know, indeed, how it would behave in defeat. To 
know oneself beaten, to cover one's retreat, to collect 
one's forces, to repair one's losses, to bind one's wounds, 
to reanimate the discouraged, to return to the combat 
with new energy, — this is the great, the supreme proof 
of courage. And if any Pharisee blames me, and taxes 
me with being too indulgent in advance, I will quote 
the words of Him who was at the same time just but 
merciful, and who proclaimed that gospel of pardon in 
which the sin is condemned and the sinner is saved : 
He that is without sin among you, let him first cast 
a stone. 



It is time now to leave these preliminary topics, in 
order to treat of love in its plenitude and its dignity. 
It is on its behalf, and that we may be more worthy of 
it, that we wage a war without mercy against whatever 
can tarnish or compromise it. To protect us from all 
the base caricatures of love, nothing is more powerful 
than true love itself. This love youth should prepare 
for ; it should recognize all that is highest and purest 
in it. In a word, the chastity which we preach is not 
that of eunuchs, but of men. " I think little of a chas- 
tity which is entirely on the surface and entirely nega- 
tive ; it gives no guarantee for the future. True chastity 
has its seat in the soul as well as in the body. An 
empty heart is never chaste ; a wife must occupy the 
sacred place which belongs to her." 1 

Respect for woman is the complement of self-respect. 

1 T. Fallot: Lettre de 25 aoitt, 1891. 



SOLIDARITY : LOVE. 255 

Just as self-respect rests on the conception which one 
forms of life and its worth, so respect for woman is the 
reflex form of an instinct which is connected with the 
deepest secrets of life. Wherever it is seen, it results 
from the union of two elements, — the masculine and 
the feminine, which are like severed parts. It seems as 
if the perfect being was made in separate individualities, 
neither of which can live by itself, in order to oblige 
them each to seek the other, to make a perfect whole. 
The attraction which draws man to woman is vastly 
stronger than the temporary gratification of lust. It is 
a mysterious power of the widest reach, — the power of 
immortal womanhood. And it is precisely to give this 
all its strength, that he must inspire himself with the 
twofold respect, — that, namely, for himself and for 
woman, — different forms of the same veneration for 
the mysteries of life. Just as self-respect springs from 
the high idea we have of manliness, and thus comes 
from a higher source than our individual personality, so 
our respect for woman in general precedes that for some 
particular woman. And if love is to reach in us its 
true dignity and its fullest scope, a broad impersonal 
basis is necessary for it. We find ourselves, then, in 
the same position, as regards love, that we are in toward 
the majority of sentiments that attract and interest 
youth. They have their beginning in a general senti- 
ment, and later on they concentrate this on one object. 
Just as, at the beginning of life, the young man is 
curious about everything, sympathetic toward every- 
thing, and, little by little, devotes his attention to speci- 
fied objects, so his love takes on at first a general 



256 YOUTH. 

character. We do not begin by loving a woman, and, 
above all, women, — which latter can be but the result 
of long decadence and the equivalent of dilettanteism in 
morality and philosophy, — we begin by loving woman- 
hood, or rather by experiencing that sentiment at once 
irresistible, sweet, elevating, and inspiring, which we 
can justly entitle the cult for woman. The cult for 
woman is the origin and the source of love ; it must 
exist before love, must live beside it, and endure its 
whole lifetime. 

But I must not stop at this point. It is as necessary 
to know and cultivate the real woman as the ideal 
woman. We do not think that she should be kept 
apart from young men, hidden, cloistered, and sur- 
rounded by the perilous glamour of forbidden fruit. 
She should, on the contrary, be sought out and seen 
often. Our society has made a great mistake. Not 
only does it not encourage in youth the ideal cult for 
woman, but it does all it can to keep the sexes apart, 
and thus prevent them from knowing each other as 
they are. It is a great evil. How shall we hinder 
facile liaisons ? How shall we prevent, above all, the 
contempt for woman — that social calamity — from 
spreading among youth which knows only the worst 
side of the feminine world ? 

Young people of both sexes are made to see one 
another and to be together. They should have com- 
mon amusements, common pleasures, — naturally under 



SOLIDARITY: LOVE. 257 

the eyes of their parents, and surrounded, above all 
in a world like ours, with necessary precautions. In 
truth, when we consider the life open to our youth, we 
are obliged to say that it is cut off from the purest 
pleasures. No one seems to remember that when one 
is young one has need of a host of things, — need of 
affection, of an interchange of sentiments with pleas- 
ant women who are worthy of respect, of frank and 
genial gayety shared with young girls of the same 
age. This need in the case of a young man, presum- 
ably not etiolate and corrupt, is much stronger than 
those baser needs we hear so much about. 

Yes, in that errant and indistinct, that groping life, 
which is the life of youth, it needs enlightened and 
warm friendships, smiles and brightness, to dissipate 
gloomy thoughts, and encouraging looks to drive away 
mournful or evil suggestions. It has a heart, and what 
troubles me is that, as a rule, no one seems to suspect 
it. Is it, then, astonishing that youth seeks gratifica- 
tion in forbidden paths, since everywhere else it is re- 
pulsed ? Alas ! though it seeks it far and near, it finds 
only illusion and disgust, and soon realizes that free 
love is but a mirage of the desert. 

Oh ! bien foil qui prendrait pour eel air er ses pas 

Ces lueurs trompeuses ou feint es! 

Ne te returne pas ! ne Ies re garde pas ! 

Ce sont des etoiles e'teiutes. 1 

A DORCHAIN. 

1 "Oh ! fool is he who takes these delusive and false gleams to 
lighten his path. Turn not; disregard them ; they are but ex~ 
tinct stars." 

*7 



258 YOUTH. 

The worst result of our wretched and abnormal life, 
of our incurable laxity as regards love, of our corrup- 
tion, is that it has made us lose that world of charm 
and beauty which I will call the halo of love. It is a 
morning land full of bursting flowers, bathed in the 
sunshine and the dew, a pure and virgin soil v/here 
no foot has trod, where no dust and no stain have 
come. It is the land where love is born amid the 
friendships, the smiles, the sports of youth. We 
see there but its sweetness ; the depth of its suffering 
is hidden. Love, without doubt, is good, even when 
it makes us weep. We must regret none of it, not 
even our tears and disappointments. But the land of 
which I speak does not know them as yet. It lies at 
the threshold of our life, like a radiant paradise where 
the happiness of living, of seeing, of worshipping rev- 
erently from afar, and oftenest without telling our love, 
suffices us. We have closed this paradise. We must 
reopen it and teach our youth to desire it. It will soon 
learn that there are more pleasure and more charm in 
this flower of sentiment than in all artificial pleasures 
put together. A youth without love is like a morn- 
ing without sun. If our youth is morose, it is because 
many have become sceptical as to love. They have 
taken the very paths that led them from it. Life casts 
off him who has troubled its source ; thenceforth it 
refuses him. Nevermore can he grasp its vigorous 
beauty. Neither the blue heavens, nor the flowers, nor 
the murmuring waters reveal to him their secret. He 
feels himself shut out of life. This is the most terrible 
of excommunications. To his withered soul the world 



SOLIDARITY : LOVE. 259 

seems withered. He who respects himself and respects 
love, knows intense joys, the joys of a child, unknown 
to others. He has preserved intact the power of being 
happy ; a healthful and vigorous life runs in his arte- 
ries like sap in the trunk of an oak ; his youth gives 
him that divine intoxication which makes the whole 
world sing in his heart. All the lives of dissipation put 
together are not worth one of his hours. 

Youthful enthusiasm is but another form of love. 
It increases and lessens with it. In proportion as our 
power of loving and the quality of our love diminish 
in us, enthusiasm also lowers or changes. Respectful 
love is a source not only of poetry, of joy, of high 
spirits, but also of power and courage. The secrets of 
virtue lie open wholly to him who practises virile chas- 
tity. Virtue is but the summing up of all the manly 
qualities which blossom in this world of beauty and 
fidelity. It is she who makes strong, indomitable hearts, 
clear-seeing eyes, and arms that can strike mighty 
blows. To me, this concentration of strength, this 
proud consciousness of its dignity and its power, seem 
its highest recompense. 

I do not wish to insist too much on that other recom- 
pense, which will consist, later on, in entering marriage, 
sound in body and young in heart, with the woman of 
your choice. Lofty as this aim is, its fulfilment can- 
not but seem a little far off, especially in view of the 
harsh demands of existing society. 

Nevertheless, if one plan his future career and pre- 
pare himself for it, ought he not also to give thought 
to the time when his duties as head of a family, as pro- 



260 YOUTH 

tector of a wife, as a father, create new responsibilities 
in him ? He who has never thanked his parents for 
having so lived as to bequeath him sound health, purf 
blood, a complete vitality, does not realize the solidarity 
of flesh and blood, nor what austere duties we have to 
perform toward those who will some day be born of 
us. Of all the crimes committed under God's heaven, 
that which I would least like to have upon my con- 
science would be to have polluted in my person the 
source of life, and to leave to others a weakened exist- 
ence, loaded with miseries, a wretched body, and a 
worn-out mind. 

These things are worthy of consideration, and youth 
is the only age when it is not too late to consider them. 



Thus far we have treated but one phase of love. It 
is time that we looked higher and farther. 

4. ilofoe of Country ano ttie foetal Mole of 
Ipoutt)* 

Beyond the family, friendships, and love — those 
intimate and sacred worlds where the individual is ini- 
tiated into its solidarity — stretches, enveloping them 
all, his country. 

Patriotism in its essence is our joyous communion 
with the surroundings of our birth. The flower laughs 
in its natal sun ; the oak grasps the soil in its powerful 
embrace, and draws thence its nourishment ; man smiles 
on. the paternal roof, on its encircling life, on his father 



SOLIDARITY: LOVE OF COUNTRY. 261 

and mother ; he is full of it all, he is attached to it all, 
at first unconsciously, then, little by little, with full real- 
ization. Through the family, that primal form of all 
love, man rises to a broader, richer love, — that of his 
country. By an interchange of influences and benefits 
the country unceasingly produces the family, nourishes 
it from its strength, forms and inspires it ; and the 
family remakes, renews, and perpetuates the country. 

" Patriotism is, then, an ensemble of sentiments, of 
inherited tendencies, of affinities, which make us dis- 
cern beyond the individual life, beyond the life of the 
family, a grand and broad common life in which we 
have a part. 

" Our country is a part of our blood, of the nervous 
fibre of our individual life, of our thought, of our 
speech, of our very tones of voice. It is knit in our 
bones, and sings on our lips. 

" Our country is, further, the skies above us, the 
mountains, the fields, the vast ocean that beats upon our 
shores. All this is not without us, it is within us. We 
carry in our very bodies, as it were, an echo of our 
motherland, and in our hearts her image radiant and 
ineffaceable. 

"Our country is, still further, all they who sleep in 
the tomb, our fathers and our mothers. It is the torch 
of life passed from hand to hand through the ages, 
which we hold in our turn ; it is all that we have 
suffered, thought, struggled, prayed for, — all our 
patrimony of trials and glory, of virtues and failures, 
of living strength or of open wounds. 

" Our country is our grandsires, but it is also our 



262 YOUTH. 

children. It is the frail and lovely head which comes 
demanding a place at our fireside ; it is he who, lying 
on his mother's knees, bears sleeping within him all 
the past and all the future. 

" Truly our country is greater than the individual or 
than the family. It is one of those grand stages in that 
mysterious life which advances from the individual to a 
fuller, higher existence, and which demands, justifies, 
and imposes all sacrifices, even that of our own life." * 

A real and powerful love of country can be almost 
instinctive ; but it has everything to gain in becoming 
conscient and reflective. It then initiates one into the 
national life and soul. The time for this initiation is 
youth. He who is passing through the period when 
the genius of his nation is revealed to him, perceives 
within himself a new birth. The deeper and more 
serious this inner action is, the purer and loftier is his 
love for his country. We must reject a noisy, braggart, 
blustering patriotism, and fill ourselves rather with that 
which is silent, true, and active. Above all, do I wish 
that you never give way to " jingoism," which is the 
caricature of patriotism. The best way to love one's 
country is to cultivate the genius of it in oneself, and 
to watch carefully against those mistakes and faults 
which will stain its good name. The duty of French 
youth in this respect is as noble as it is easy to deter- 
mine. The whole course of our history points it out 
to us. Democratic France — born of the joint action 
of the human will and the force of circumstances — ■ 
sees, more and more, its ideal blend with the ideal of 

1 C. Wagner : Justice, p. 113. 



SOLIDARITY: LOVE OF COUNTRY. 263 

human progress. No country in the world has spent 
its resources, its genius, its blood, for immaterial good, 
for liberty, justice, truth, as has ours. It has sought 
these not only for itself, but for others, often for the 
enemies of yesterday or to-morrow. Our history is 
the most splendid refutation of national utilitarianism. 
We, at least, have not made of our country an agglom- 
eration of egoisms, nor an attack on humanity. The 
grand traditions of heroism and of generosity which 
result from such a past as ours are wholly of a kind to 
elevate the instinctive love for the fatherland to that 
sentiment, at once reflective and enthusiastic, where the 
cult of country is the same as the cult of humanity. 
What ideal could be more beautiful to fire and form the 
characters of the young", and inspire noble lives ? 

I do not in the least deduce from this that French 
youth should aspire to the questionable habits of those 
cosmopolites whose mouths are full of the word 
u humanity/' but who treat patriotism as a prejudice. 
Without country humanity is but a hollow entity. Just 
as he who discharges faithfully his duties to his family 
renders the greatest service to his country, so, in devot- 
ing himself to his duties as a citizen of some one country, 
he serves humanity. The true way for us to serve 
humanity is to cherish with the greatest affection the 
sacred flame of the national ideal, and to warm ourselves 
always at it anew. 

The cause of that liberty, justice, and equality which 
our democracy is trying to realize is in a great meas- 
ure, in the world at large, dependent on the treatment 
which it receives at our hands. We can make it sue- 



264 YOUTH. 

ceed or fail by the way we organize our national life. 
The more 1 see of the march of events, the better do I 
understand that in attending to our duties as French- 
men we are accomplishing at the same time a general 
mission. I deduce, then, very naturally this : humanity 
is interested that French democracy be strong and 
wise. It will always become more so, if united. 
Humanity, then, is interested that we be on as good 
terms as possible with our compatriots, and that we 
treat them justly and kindly, — in a word, as brothers. 
Is this not evident enough ? To assume it, nevertheless, 
is to foresee a vast programme. For much must be done 
before our noble national ideal can be widely practised. 
We must not confound this ideal with the spectacle 
which its daily life affords. Verily, if that life is ad- 
vancing toward our ideal, it is still far from it. Let us 
acknowledge the truth honestly, — the mass of our 
people are still far removed from education in demo- 
cracy and the ways of liberty. We have seen it rise 
by its energy, its activity, its elasticity, from unprece- 
dented defeat from without. It has nothing to dread 
from that quarter. If it be but vigilant, it can rest in 
the consciousness of its strength and its regained dig- 
nity. The time has come to turn all our attention to 
our internal affairs, that we may raise by our behaviour, 
as citizens, the ensemble of national life to the plane of 
our democratic ideal. Here the duty and the role of 
youth are clear. I am going to try to point them out 
briefly, and I will say to each of my young compatriots : 
If you love your country, this is what you must do. 



SOLIDARITY : LOVE OF COUNTRY. 265 

By a sort of fatality, which all other nations too are 
experiencing in different degrees, society has reached 
a state of disunion much to be regretted. Interests, 
social positions, political creeds, philosophic opinions, 
beliefs, all tend to separate us. There is no need to be 
specific. Read the papers and observe life. Since the 
press and speech have been free, how many days pass 
without some of our fellow -citizens being wronged by 
others ? The higher genius of a nation must be power- 
ful, indeed, to triumph over such a state of affairs. 
If, notwithstanding, we are steadily advancing, what an 
unshaken faith must that be which animates our prin- 
ciples? We should have still greater reason for ad- 
vance if, instead of being disunited, we marched hand 
in hand. National concentration is the great work for 
us to attempt ; the times are ripe for it. 

I know that youth suffers from the melancholy 
spectacle of so many useless struggles and so many 
antagonisms, and that it is animated by loftier aims, 
We can address it the more confidently because we feel 
that it is in sympathy with us. I will say to it : You 
have done well during several years past to try to 
come together and to organize, and I approve all that 
has resulted from this salutary inspiration. Associations 
or circles of students, young people's societies, what- 
ever may be their shades of difference and their aims, 
do good in this way, — that they cultivate esprit de corps. 
Sometimes, alas! they cultivate especial "isms" and 
party spirit, which amounts to associating for a bad 
purpose. But I mention this unfortunate tendency only 
in passing. As a rule, association among equals is an 



266 ' YOUTH. 

excellent thing. It gives a higher interest to life and 
thought. But I ask more of it than this. You are in 
the habit of seeking those of similar tastes, — according 
to the old proverb, Like seeks like. This is in re- 
sponse to a need, — that of coming in contact with 
people of the same world and the same way of thinking 
as ourselves. But if you are concerned only for this, 
you will inevitably end in being narrow-minded. Nar- 
rowness engenders the clannish spirit, which, again, is a 
great evil. We must remember that man needs to see 
and hear other things than those of his accustomed 
surroundings. Step outside of your associations, your 
circles, your clubs, and see what is going on elsewhere. 
Mingle with minds of a different shade from your own. 
The result will be kaleidoscopic, but at the same time 
how interesting and instructive ! 

In a democratic country, where every opinion has a 
right to be heard, we need to cultivate the faculty of 
listening. We know how to speak, how to shout even, 
but we do not know how to listen to our opponent. 
At bottom we have a very poor respect for authority. 
As soon as opinions contrary to our own are advanced, 
a demon within incites us to cry, Enough ! The result 
is that while we are entirely free to associate and 
discuss, our own fault often forbids what the law sanc- 
tions. Nine times out of ten a public meeting degener- 
ates into an uproar or a fight. This is not democratic. 
We must learn, then, to bear contradiction. How 
shall we do this ? By seeking among our young com- 
patriots those of different opinions, different religious 
views, different studies, and serving with them an ap- 



SOLIDARITY: LOVE OF COUNTRY. 267 

prenticeship to liberty and toleration, or, as I like better 
to call it, justice. 

Youth is not, as a rule, evilly disposed. Even stags 
are kindly when young; their bloodthirsty instincts 
awake later. It is the same with man. If we take 
advantage of his naturally happy disposition, we can 
secure most excellent results. I know of student 
societies in Switzerland where political differences have 
no influence whatever. These societies are so limited 
in point of numbers that there are good fellowship 
and even friendships among their members. Friend- 
ship, like love, often exists between persons of different 
social standing, and long outlasts the years of study. 
These friends of youth often find themselves in rival 
political camps, or separated by those other distances 
which life creates. But their common memories make 
a neutral ground on which to meet, and this takes from 
their contentions much of their bitterness. Doubtless, 
such things occur among us also. But they are excep- 
tions, only too rare. We are brought up in herds sepa- 
rated from one another, and party interests often 
demand that youth itself be enrolled and drawn up 
for battle. 

Sainte-Beuve has said, — • 

// existe, en un mot, che{ Us trot's quarts des hommes, 
Un poete, mort jenne, a qui Vhomme survit. 1 

In a certain sense this is true ; but we can with much 
more truth say that what dies young in three fourths of 

1 "There is, in a word, in three fourths of mankind, a poet who 
has died young, whom the man has survived." 



268 YOUTH. 

us is the man himself. In lieu of him there survives a 
lawyer, a professor, a politician, a financier, a workman, 
a churchman. And when one wishes to address these 
survivors, these sad remains, and tell them of humanity, 
of human duties and human interests, they answer: 
It is none of our affair. 

Can we not, in traversing our own country, meet a host 
of men in whom the Frenchman has died young, yield- 
ing his place to a radical, an anarchist, a monarchist, a 
clerical ? For the love of our fair land, let us so 
nourish the Frenchman in us that he may survive all 
the epithets that will be heaped upon him later on, and 
let us create harmonious surroundings where shall be 
able to meet together men of good-will from all the four 
quarters of the intellectual horizon. 

But this is not enough. We must overstep social 
barriers. Studious youth and the youth of the people 
have much to learn each from the other. 

During the delightful fetes of the University of 
Toulouse, in May, 1891, M. Jaures, professor of phi- 
losophy, said as follows: "The advance of some of 
us toward truth must be evidenced by a general ad- 
vance toward justice ; and just as in these May days 
the beautiful garden which surrounds these buildings 
sends into the very laboratories and libraries breaths of 
perfume from the reawakened earth, so ought pure 
knowledge and high thinking to be permeated by the 
fraternal spring of human association." These are most 
beautiful sentiments, and they should be put into 



SOLIDARITY: LOVE OF COUNTRY. 269 

practice. I have spoken already, several times, of certain 
teachers of evil, who for filthy lucre corrupt the people 
and sell them their detestable writings. If studious 
youth, as a whole," understood is duties in this respect, 
it would soon make an organized fight against these 
pernicious influences. The efforts of certain societies 
in Paris and in the provinces in this direction deserve 
to be imitated. But let no one imagine that this will 
be the only advantage from that drawing together 
of classes which I so much desire, and for which I 
pray. The people will bring as much to it as you. 
We must not only harangue them, we must seek 
them out, we must visit them, we must be friends 
with young workmen, and, if possible, even found 
societies where shall come together all the elements 
that go to the making of our country. To organize 
a public spirit and a common thought in the nation, 
must begin in these little ways, so laborious, and 
often so difficult to put into practice. Habitual and 
kindly intercourse between the different grades of 
society destroys a host of those evil prejudices which 
are so easily maintained. They do not know one 
another or they would understand this. We cannot 
remedy this social disunion and universal distrust among 
the masses by a single concerted action. Confidence 
can only be regained little by little. A whole new 
world opens to us here which we are only just begin- 
ning to enter. I can never forget the good which I 
have constantly brought away from familiar commerce 
with the people, both in the city and in the counl 
as well as from the delightful reunions of the societies 



270 YOUTH. 

for brotherly aid and social studies, founded in Paris 
ten years ago by M. T. Fallot, which deserve to be 
better known and attended. 

There is still another way to be pointed out. Good- 
will alone is all that is needed to carry out the one we 
have been speaking of, but for this one there is needed 
a spirit of sacrifice and of heroism. It is nothing less 
than to make voyages of discovery into the different 
domains of the life of the people. This life is full of 
seamy sides, of grievous or admirable details which can- 
not be seen from without. The people understand and 
judge themselves badly ; they can give us no informa- 
tion on the subject. We are, then, in face of a world 
closed not by distrust alone nor from choice, but by the 
force of circumstances. To find its key we must re- 
solve to live the life of the lowly. Just as some persons 
take the train or cross the sea to explore far-off lands, 
so must we leave for a time our world to traverse not 
great material, but great social distances. At such a 
day and such an hour you cease to be he whom you 
were. Under different dress, among persons unknown 
to you, you engage yourself as a labourer, a servant, a 
private soldier, cutting off rigorously all recollection of 
your privileges and making no use whatever of them. 
You enter their rank in life, and you agree to be treated 
like the rest of their world. There is no book, no per- 
son, even the most experienced, that can open your 
eyes as can this kind of investigation. 

When a man is preparing himself to exercise an in- 



SOLIDARITY: LOVE OF COUNTRY. 271 

fluence of some kind, to direct no matter what, to hold 
in his hand a portion of another's destiny, as is the case 
with the majority of educated youth, it is worth while 
to have passed some time among his constituents, the 
weak and the ignorant, that he may divine better 
through suffering the secret of justice. 

Nothing prepares one to command as does obedi- 
ence ; nothing is so useful to him who is to speak, 
direct, or decide authoritatively, as to have first been 
obliged to obey in silence, whether his orders were good 
or bad, just or unjust. 

A single slight illness, where he must resign himself 
to be treated or maltreated by a professional brother, 
is worth to a physician a whole year's observation of 
others. 

Our ancestors had in certain lands the suggestive 
custom of once a year reversing the role of servants 
and masters. It v/as at Christmas, in memory of the 
gospel. The same custom, taken seriously, would 
afford most spiritual and most serious object-lessons. 
To put oneself in another's place is, in truth, the very 
essence of solidarity. 

Life looks very differently from the point of view of 
the anvil than from that of the hammer. It is good 
to see it from both points. 

The advantage of these investigations which we are 
recommending to youth does not consist alone in the 
discoveries that we make in this new field. When we 
return to it, our old life presents to us details we had 
never noticed before ; we are better able to appreciate 
it, and to estimate it. In a word, we have had a salutary 



272 YOUTH. 

experience ; and the old man, narrow and egoistic, has 
been done away with, leaving a clearer field for the 
new man. 

We cannot come too near to these beings simpler 
than ourselves, nor turn too strong a light on the differ- 
ent courses' of the social edifice, even to its very source 
and foundation. There comes a time in life when it is 
too late to throw oneself into the enterprises of which 
we speak. They are escapades suitable for youth, to 
whom they offer an opportunity of passing a vacation 
which will be anything but commonplace. Let it not 
imagine that it is demeaning itself in so doing. It is far 
otherwise. Man is like the oak ; the deeper his roots 
go, the higher does he lift his head. 

5. OTorD on tije international l&ole of 

g>0tttt)* 

The strain between modern principles and realistic 
civilization has found an expression nowhere more 
striking than in the state of our international rela- 
tions. For long years Europe, under the appearance 
of progress, has been retrograding into barbarism. We 
have said enough about patriotism to prevent our 
being suspected of lukewarmness in that respect. It 
will be. so much the more easy to speak frank/y on 
this topic. 

The principle of nationality is susceptible of an 
exaggeration that destroys the beneficial effects of 
patriotism, and makes of one's country an attack upon 
humanity. In this way a nation ceases to be a grand 



SOLIDARITY: INTERNATIONAL ROLE OF YOUTH. 273 

school of fraternity, broadening- the heart and ripening 
one for universal solidarity. It becomes the home of 
egoism, where are fomented hostility, hatred, envy, 
all the sentiments that disrupt society and destroy 
solidarity. This state of affairs is so unhappy 
that it alone neutralizes all man's real progress toward 
justice and enfranchisement. Our Europe, sullen 
and distrustful, furnishes us many plain proofs of 
this. 

Here, also, the modern spirit with its power to be 
just and reasonable, has a work to do which the pre- 
sent moment invites. A thousand peremptory reasons 
prevent men of experience, intrusted with the charge 
of public affairs, from taking part in this work. Tragic 
necessities and situations beyond the influence of human 
will tie their hands. Abeyance and reserve are imposed 
on them by their very position, and by the magnitude 
of the interests confided to their care. 

But youth, studious youth, can do much. 

The republic of letters, arts, and sciences no longer 
exists. We must resuscitate it, and so create a common 
ground on a loftier plane. If this noble city of the 
mind were possible in old Europe, when broken into a 
hundred little states unceasingly at war, why should we 
despair of rebuilding it to-day ? All the better part of 
our nature urges us to so noble a task. The founda- 
tions are laid ; we have but to seize on all the ele- 
ments of solidarity, peace, work, enlightenment, the 
good-will everywhere about us, to create a marvellous 
whole. 

But one of the essential conditions of success is that 

iS 



274 YOJTH. 

the coming generations should have put in practice this 
international life in their youth. Their very youth 
affords a common ground, and an excellent one. 
Walter Scott has said that a kind of freemasonry 
exists between young people of every land. There is 
much truth in the remark. 

Our youth can put in practice the fraternization of 
which we have spoken in the very heart of our own 
country, without going a step outside. The times are 
changed, indeed, since France was the second father- 
land of all men of culture. But something of this has 
always lived within her. It is common enough still to 
find, among one's comrades, those who have come 
from near and far to study or complete their studies in 
France. People can say to them, Don't go to France ; 
they come all the same. Our youth has a grand 
mission to fill toward these strangers. " If I were a 
student, how I should interest myself in foreign stu- 
dents ! I would pay them attentions even to the 
point of coquetry. I would do the honours of frank 
French hospitality. If they lived by themselves, as 
they generally do, I would make excuses to visit them 
and make them like me. Then I would introduce 
them to our French students. I would make them 
joyous, by contact with our light-heartedness. I would 
talk to them of their country and of my own, of the 
things which they approve and do not approve in 
France. I would plead our cause before them, and I 
should win." 1 

1 Ernest Lavisse : Etudes et Etudtants, p. 287. 



SOLIDARITY: INTERNATIONAL ROLE OF YOUTH. 275 

We cannot insist too strongly on the importance of 
such advice. 

But the young Frenchman must take another and a 
great step. He must make up his mind to study for 
some time in a foreign land, in order to know and ap- 
preciate what is going on outside his own. I acknowl- 
edge that, at the outset, this is very hard. Ice must be 
broken, roads must be laid out and cleared; and a 
stock of courage and patience laid in. Never mind ; it 
must be done. The Europe of the Renaissance was 
fairly furrowed in every direction by students, who 
often travelled afoot and barefoot to save their shoes. 
A journey which they made in the midst of difficulties 
and privations we cannot refuse when we can do it by 
rail. French students should enter all the principal 
universities of Europe, and their action should be 
reciprocated. 

We expect from these young men an act of repara- 
tion and international justice. Every one knows that 
international calumny, practised on a large scale, has 
been the scourge of our times. The infernal works of 
hatred and falsehood have been carried on in time of 
peace, thanks to public ignorance. We have become 
unaccustomed to seeing and deciding for ourselves, 
leaving to the press the work of instruction. The press 
has instructed us in such fashion that we no longer 
know whom to trust, and the people are no wiser than 
ourselves. The country which has been most wronged 
in this respect, both by its enemies and its own sons, 
alas ! is France. Time is needed to efface the traces of 



276 YOUTH. 

such foul acts ; but no trouble should be spared to this 
end. There can be no better times in store for Europe 
than when the youth of its schools and universities 
shall have little by little turned public spirit in a new 
direction. It is, as you see, like creating a new world ; 
but how powerful are the motives to undertake it 
with enthusiasm ! Never did nobler task await willing 
workers. 



BELIEF. 277 

CHAPTER VII. 

BELIEF. 

Truth, moral and social, is like an inscription 
on a mortuary tablet over which all the world 
walks as it goes about its affairs, and which 
from day to day becomes more effaced until 
some friendly chisel deepens the words in the 
worn stone so that all can see and read. This 
chisel is in the hands of a few men only, who 
bend so obstinately over the old inscription that 
they risk being; thrown down upon the marble 
and trampled under the feet of the careless 
passers-by. — Vinet. 

Der religiose Glaube ist 
einfach durch sein 
Vorhandensein im Gemtith, 
der im Mensehengeist 
selbst gefuhrte Thaterweis 
des gottlichen Geistes. 

LlPSILS. 

DELIEF! Is it not with it that we should have 
*-* begun ? Does not it determine our whole exist- 
ence ? It is at life's opening that we picture it to 
ourselves most easily, with its eye fixed on its supreme 
aim. Doubtless this way of looking at it is, to a cer- 
tain extent, just. Every one of us meets at our entrance 
into life, under some form or other, an interpretation of 
things which offers itself as our guide. But this inter- 
pretation is the fruit of others' experience, and, indeed, 



278 YOUTH. 

the result of their life. In saying, then, that we do not 
begin with faith, but advance toward it, we are on solid 
ground. It is on this that we wish to stand, as much 
out of regard for our times as out of regard for the 
youth whom we are addressing. To build up a belief 
anew, our age must consider how belief comes into 
existence ; and this, too, is one of the deepest and most 
serious needs of youth. 

We ordinarily understand by belief, adhesion to a 
body of doctrine which presents itself authoritatively. 
God, at a certain epoch, revealed the truth to man once 
for all. The revelation was made " in the lump," and 
certain men and certain bodies are its depositaries. As 
representing divine truth, they claim the same obedience 
as God. We are not to weigh, examine, or discuss 
what they offer us, but to receive it on our knees, and 
accept it in silence with our whole being, whatever be 
our repugnance or opposition. God has spoken ; that 
should be enough. All the old dogmatic beliefs hold 
these views. Their premise, on which everything else 
depends, is the great question at issue between them and 
the modern spirit. But we make haste to add that the 
modern spirit is here in accord with that of Christ and 
the gospel. Christ did not ask obedience, but convic- 
tion ; and he gives to those who listened to him, as a 
criterion of his words : "If any man will do his will, 
he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God or 
whether I speak of myself." In saying this he indi- 
cates that belief is born of experience, and that to be 
in the best possible position to get this experience, we 
must try to be men. To wish to do the will of Our 



BELIEF. 279 

, Father signifies really to examine our life, that we may 
see of what it consists, and that we may accomplish the 
will of him whose offspring it is. He who tries to 
fulfil his destiny as a man, and to be faithful to himself 
in every respect, builds within him the firmest founda- 
tion for the acquisition of human verity and knowledge 
of doctrines. It has been said that these ideas open the 
door to individual fantasies, and lack reverence for 
truth. They infer, on the contrary, the greatest respect 
for man and for divine truth which can be ever attained. 
Man's liberty and his nature are both respected. He 
is not to decide anything through compulsion or over- 
persuasion ; but step by step, as a child learns to read, 
his conscience is to learn to spell out the truth. God 
himself submits himself to man's judgment ; he offers 
himself ; he does not impose himself, he is willing to 
be accepted. I know that these are serious things to 
say, and that in saying them one needs the support of 
some greater authority than oneself, and 1 am rejoiced 
that they have been uttered by the Son of Man. Then, 
too, if man is respected, God is respected also. To ad- 
mit his truth we need not close our eyes ; we can open 
them to their widest. When Christ, feeling himself 
filled with it, announces it to men, he says to them : 
Receive it ; it is holy, it is grand. The first comer c 
not grasp it, there must be effort and pains. Summon 
all the strength within you ; appeal to every means of 
light, to every source of help ; try to be men by intel- 
ligent choice, from the heart, by the will ; do not dwarf 
and mutilate yourselves in any direction, by asceticism 
or by any vice, — and it will be granted you to hear in 



280 YOUTH. 

my words not the weak sound of a voice that has risen 
and died away, but the very echo of eternal realities. 

This being said, we can at our ease lay down our 
fundamental proposition, which is this : — 

The whole world of facts, spiritual and material, 
including history and its traditions, is the field of 
experience, and experience is the basis of belief. 

Belief is the higher region of life ; it is the whole of 
life, the complete synthesis of human induction. All 
our experiences and those of the past, living anew in 
our souls, blend themselves together and constitute that 
personal revelation which life has made us; — that is 
belief. Note that we reach it by hundreds and by 
thousands of roads, often very different from one 
another ; but these roads have this in common, — they 
are routes toward the Infinite. Man, and all Nature 
with him, is in process of evolution, from the atom and 
the germ toward perfect life. Their law is that of 
growth. And when man realizes that this is the under- 
lying principle of his destiny, no phenomenon appears 
to him isolated. Everything is related, connected, and 
makes part of a whole. Everything extends beyond 
and above itself. Every step announces the one that 
follows. The sense which takes life in its entirety, 
which considers its origin and its hereafter, which 
regards it as a starting-point and a means to an end, 
which includes, in a word, all those details of which 
our life is made, in accordance with that great will 
which underlies all things, — this is the religious sense. 
It is essential to lay stress upon the primordial form 
which the religious sense assumes when it begins to act, 



BELIEF. 231 

and before it has as yet attained that loft}' conclusion, 
that last, that sublime flower, which we call belief. 
This form is called piety, and is in itself an exalted 
manifestation of reverence. Piety is reverence reach- 
ing out to the world beyond. I may compare it to 
that line on the sea's horizon where the blue of the 
ocean blends with the blue of the sky. Nowhere is 
there a closer insight into things human and divine than 
in piety. It recognizes and reveres in each lesser reality 
the higher reality. Piety is, with reverence, the most 
important of human phenomena. Its value to our age, 
and especially to our youth, cannot be exaggerated. 
These two sentiments intermingle constantly in man's 
attitude toward everything. They give the tone to his 
moral life, and mark its intensity. He who lives badly 
loses reverence and loses piety. Impiety is a complex 
crime ; it is the summing up of all the evil we have 
committed in detail. It is possible for man to lose his 
belief in life ; yet no one can reproach him with it 
if he retain his piety. But if the lack of belief is the 
result of impiety, we are face to face with a moral 
suicide. 

The strangest thing to be seen in this domain is 
belief without piety, — belief rigid, supercilious, un- 
sympathetic, devoid of that flavour of humanity 
without which everything is worthless. A belief which 
lacks reverence is domineering and unkindly, and even 
mocks at another's need of belief. We must distrust 
it ; it is but a vain show. The tree is standing, but its 
roots have been cut through ; look at it closer, — it is 
dead. It would be better to have piety and lack belief. 



282 YOUTH. 

If I dwell so strongly on reverence and on piety, it is 
for a purpose. They are the first essentials in recon- 
structing a living faith. For it is indeed a reconstruc- 
tion which is in question to-day, not only for those who 
have broken with the past, but also for those who 
cannot make revered traditions accord with personal 
beliefs, as truly worthy of respect as they. Humanity 
has reached one of those points where, if it would con- 
tinue to advance, it must renew itself at the sources of 
life and hope. We shall do this the better, according as 
we are penetrated with filial piety toward that great reli- 
gious past whose symbols, customs, and ideas contained 
so many treasures, and as we approach, on the other 
hand, with more reverence existing life and its realities. 
History, then, as well as life, will show us under differ- 
ent forms the same humanity always looking for that 
which will explain it to itself and quiet its unrest. 

There has been accomplished in this century, swayed 
by so many contentions, a modest work, — a work for 
the future, if there ever was one, but a work of which 
most persons are entirely ignorant. It has consisted in 
going back everywhere to the cradle of religious tradi- 
tions. By its means we are present at their genesis, 
and understand them better, perhaps, than their imme- 
diate contemporaries. It has been especially active in 
all that concerns Christ and his work. And the deeper 
we go into this study, the more evident is it that Christ 
is unknown not only to the world at large, but even 
to the churches which bear his name. If there is any- 
thing made difficult of access, discoloured, and turned 
from its original intention, that thing is certainly the 



BELIEF. 283 

old gospel. It will be to the eternal glory of historic 
theology, that it has made known to the conscience of 
our own day this gospel in all its primitive simplicity. 
In default of this key we were forever shut off from 
the heart and the thought of a far-distant epoch, whose 
intellectual formulas and whose customs had become a 
sealed book. But now the thread of human evolution 
is made one again. Freed from whatever is local and 
transient, and from subsequent additions, the great 
fundamental truths of the gospel appear to us in their 
real import. In its thought as in its practice, in its 
way of interpreting the world as in its way of direct- 
ing human activity, the gospel so far outsteps the 
churches which are built upon it as to be rather a 
gospel of the future than of the past. The more 
one fixes one's attention on the subject, the less can 
one fail to perceive a great affinity between this for- 
gotten gospel and the loftiest aspirations of the modern 
spirit. We are so constituted as to understand our- 
selves ; and this for a multitude of reasons. I shall 
content myself with noting a few of these. 

Our epoch has broken with general ideas, especially 
with those in the domain of metaphysics. It would be 
very difficult, if not impossible, for it to assimilate a 
religion, even though it were the purest and most ele- 
vated, if it presented itself under the form of a meta- 
physical doctrine. The reticence of Christ as to all 
that concerns the transcendental world is extreme. He 
brought religion down from heaven to earth, and 
changed it from a consideration of cosmic problems 
to a matter of the human conscience. What strikes 



284 YOUTH. 

us above all in him is this human character which 
breathes from his person and from his doctrine. He has 
shown man the grandeur of his lowly mission, — that 
narrow road which through long patience and unseen 
labours leads to the heights of the divine. At the 
same time he has humanized God. How true is Vinet's 
remark : " That beautiful utterance of a pagan, ' I am 
a man, and nothing relating to man lacks interest to 
me/ the gospel has put in our Lord's mouth. " This is 
true, not only because Christ preached that everlasting 
pity which suffers from our griefs and that reparation 
through his sacrifice and forgiveness of the sin which 
destroys poor humanity, but still further, because he 
has made it evident that for man the purest revelation 
of God, and that most easily understood, is man him- 
self. That great psychological truth, that a being can 
grasp with his intelligence or his feelings only those 
realities which have their source within him, shines 
forth at every step in the gospel. It constitutes its 
humility because it reaches down to those in trouble ; 
but it constitutes also its assurance and strength, since 
through these very troubles we rise, step by step, to the 
source of life to hear it said : You are akin to God. 
Jesus has done more than to declare God, he has made 
him felt, and made him, in a way, more actual than 
the world itself. Through his holy life the unknown 
and hidden God speaks with the tongue of man. God 
is here, we see him, we feel him, his spirit enters the 
hearts that love one another and awake to righteous- 
ness ; there is a halo of God about humanity. It is by 
this way of believing alone that we can satisfy that 



BELIEF. 285 

longing for the divine, that thirst for everlasting life, 
that ardent desire to put our lips to its very spring, to 
take nothing on the word of another or by proxy, but 
to see and to touch, to enter ourselves into the holy of 
holies and adore. 

Another reason which commends the gospel to us is 
this : We cannot expect in this generation, as in cer- 
tain great epochs of synthesis, a revelation which will 
answer all our questions and be the adequate formula 
of our entire thought. Our conception of the heavens 
and the earth has entirely changed, and worlds cannot 
be reconstructed in so short a time. To be content 
with our daily bread and the cup of cold water which 
revives and helps us march onward, — this is our 
lot. Christ helps us wondrously to bear this lot He 
came at the time when the gods were dying, when their 
temples were being rent, when in the mundane majesty 
of the old religions — the Jewish religion as well as 
others — the restless soul found, in place of relief, only 
a burden the more. He restored that ancient human 
tradition, — reaching back of antiquated customs and 
decrepit formalism, of sacerdotal pride, and the wiles of 
Scribes, — of prophets humble before God, brotherly to 
those in trouble, bold before earthly potentates, and 
terrors to evil-doers. He said to all those who were 
seeking and toiling : " The one thing necessary is to 
believe in God and love your neighbour. He further 
declared — and this is the very essence of righteously 
— that the soul is of more value than the world. He 
sought out the weak, those who were oppressed and 



286 YOUTH. 

forgotten, the common people, children, grand labours 
and deep sufferings, simplicity and sacrifice. Speak- 
ing only when necessary, and then in the simplest way, 
he threw himself wholly into action, and enjoined faith- 
fulness in little things ; and in this respect he is peculiarly 
applicable to our times. Set aside all explanatory com- 
mentaries, all the monopolies of his person and his 
doctrine, stand before that cross of Calvary and you 
will see him clearly. From the depths of your con- 
sciousness, through the holy griefs of the just of all 
ages, through that sentiment of righteousness so alive 
in the modern spirit, you will hear something say to 
you, — truth for man is this, to trust and give of one- 
self. The salvation of the world comes from those 
who have practised this law till death. 



Let no one fancy that the simplicity of faith which 
can be expressed in few words is poverty of faith. All 
great epochs of belief have been sparing of words : 
so much the more were they rich in what no words can 
describe, — in love, in power, in joy. Systems of the- 
ology come at a later date, when the spirit of these has 
taken flight. Then systems increase and multiply, and 
pile up mighty tomes. In the outset it is otherwise, 
and I much prefer it then. I may add that then, too, 
it is most adapted to youth. 

There is in this divine folly of the gospel, with its 
trust, austerity, simplicity, and love, something which 
captivates on the instant all young hearts. Certain re- 
ligions are excellent as a shelter for old egoisms, senil- 



BELIEF. 287 

ities, puerilities, for preserving weak hearts from the 
sounds of the world, or even for putting sweetly to 
sleep our conscience and our intellect. The gospel is 
made, above everything, for life and for the living. It 
makes us act, it places us in the thick of the fray, it 
makes us go forward with our ships burned behind us. 
No looking backward ! It is energetic, virile, joyous ! 
It rings out and rouses us like the clarion of battle. 

There is yet one point of considerable importance 
which should fix the attention of all serious thinkers. 
The gospel is so human that even those who do not 
know it, or reject pans of it, cannot help being in accord 
with it when they wish to lead an upright life. It is 
very difficult to respect man's intelligence, conscience, 
and rights without coming — I do not say to believe in 
the Father, in eternal justice, and everlasting life, but 
to act as if one did believe in them. For he who 
has reached this point has already raised in his heart 
and in his activity an altar to the unknown God. 
Jesus would say to him : Thou art not far from the 
kingdom of heaven. In a recent study on Alexander 
Vinet, one of our contemporary historians says: " This 
humanity, this universality of doctrine and spirit of 
Vinet, assures him a cordial reception, and a serious 
influence, even among those who do not believe in 
Christian doctrines, but who do believe in conscience 
and the existence of those invisible realities which 
conscience can perceive and reveal." 1 Applied to the 
gospel itself, such a remark would be more just still. 

1 Gabriel Monod : Alexandre Vinet, Revue chreUenne, ma 



288 YOUTH. 

I wish, in speaking of belief and of its reconstruc- 
tion, to insist on independence. Respect yourselves, 
young sirs, you who are seeking and toiling in the 
domain of ideas. Love your spiritual poverty. Have 
no fear of beginning with little and of augmenting it 
slowly and surely. This is the incontestable law of 
spiritual conquest. Do not listen to speculators who 
speak to you of riches suddenly acquired. They are 
the worst tempters. Guard the virginity of the spirit 
even more than that of the body. Belief is the sister 
of Liberty ; caged, she always dies. Never become 
slaves that you may serve the better. You will thus 
lose all that you possess. But in regaining it in this 
way and in practising spiritual independence, in accord- 
ing to others what you demand for yourselves, remem- 
ber that man is a social being. This is true in religion 
as in other things. 

Belief, certainly, is personal; but it has this in 
common with love, — that its bond is more active the 
less there is demanded of it. It is necessary to have 
religious fraternization, and to cultivate together our 
hopes and beliefs, — in short, to worship together. 
The religious form of the future, besides, will approach 
that of primitive Christianity; it will be a living 
temple of brothers united by the same love. Further, 
we must respect what is best in its hereditary and 
traditional solidarity, that we may not lose the fruits 
of history. When one is born among religious sur- 
roundings, it is one's duty to be very thankful for it. 
To love one's church is as good as to love one's 
family and one's country. But here comes in a 



BELIEF. 289 

danger, — that of religious party spirit, the spirit of 
exclusion. Young believer, shun it as you would 
the pestilence. It would be better to keep to your- 
self than to cultivate with others the spirit of exclu- 
sion and spiritual pride. As in everything else, our 
times demand in the domain of belief a grand breadth. 
The duty of the present moment is to fraternize ; and 
individual churches, whatever may be their reason for 
existence, are useless except as they prepare for the 
church universal. There are times in history when it 
is necessary for a man to devote himself to some 
special and clearly defined cause, — when, in a word, a 
breech is to be made, and it behooves us to fall into 
line. Our pressing duty to-day is to overstep the walls 
of separation, and to grasp hands above their dividing 
lines. To refind humanity, to become again men, — 
if this be the watchword in the field of education, of 
politics, of society, how much more ought we to re- 
member it in the field of religion, the largest of them 
all, and where narrow-mindedness is parcelling out and 
cramping everything in such lamentable fashion. May 
youth understand this ! Honour to every sincere at- 
tachment which unites us to the religious family from 
which we sprung ! For the time has come again when 
Moriah and despised Gerizim are of equal worth, and 
when it behooves those who inhabit them to seize the 
pilgrim staff and mount to less limited horizons. There 
they will hear things which will make them exclaim 
with the old pilgrims at the first Pentecost : " Behold 
we come out of every nation under heaven, and we 
hear every man in our own tongue wherein we were 

19 



290 YOUTH. 

born/' — and overcome with joy at discovering brothers 
when they believed themselves wide apart, they will ex- 
perience feelings which this intolerant and quarrelsome 
world does not know. Through humanity pure and 
simple, they will find that contact with eternal realities 
which lifts man from the dust ; and the same prayer 
will rise from all hearts : Our Father who art in 
heaven. 

This brings us to our culminating point. Through 
fraternity we come to know the Father. Through 
faithfulness we come from things transitory to the 
perception of things eternal. This is the end of life. 
Here meet all the roads we have travelled ; here the 
ideal finds its crown ; here is supreme unity. It is for 
this that the flowers are fair, that the stars shine, that 
the hidden enigma of love is born anew every spring. 
It is for this that man suffers, works, and weeps. 
Happy is he if to him it is given to draw from all ex- 
istence, like a pure fragrance, that filial credo which is 
to the instinctive love of life what a clouded impression 
is to a clearly defined sentiment ; which is to the first 
smile of a child what the declaration of a young man 
is, when in an outburst of tenderness he cries : My 
mother ! 

This is the road in which we ask you to march, ye 
chosen flower of our youth. From the midst of your 
labours, your griefs, the struggles of your intelligence 
with darkness and of your will with evil, lift your heart 
to the verities, so old and so new, so familiar and so 
forgotten. Let the wind of the Holy Spirit blow upon 



BELIEF. 291 

your heads. Know its mystery, its terror, and its 
tenderness, and you will be able on your way, which is 
that too of humanity, to see arise the dawn you 
for. Thus you will have overcome the evil you re- 
ceived with the heritage of your ancestors. You will 
multiply a hundred-fold the good they have done. In 
attacking, in this spirit, their vast labours in science 

ellous conquests they left behind them, 
work you will be able to accomplish ! May you thus 
become, in this age of subdivision, weariness, and 
and tear, that force of which our Michelet some- 
speaks, when he says that some day it will sweep away 
the old world with a breath from God ! 



THE END. 



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